Good Grief

Grief is a necessary and godly response to tragedy.   #daybyday   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Have you ever noticed how people will apologize for their grief? “I’m sorry for being like this, please forgive me.” But grief is not a bad thing. Grief can be a necessary and godly response to tragedy. The author of 2 Samuel 1 makes this moment right here, David and his men’s grief, the central part of the story. If we read this text through a literary lens, then this moment, this reaction, sits in the middle or the climax of the story. We first have the arrival of this young man, then David questions the young man. The story closes with David questioning the young man again, and then we have the young man’s elimination from the scene. So you have arrival, conversation, and then conversation and exit. But right in the middle here is David’s and his men’s mourning. This is not by accident. In fact, it is very possible that the order of events as listed here is not even chronological. It could be that the grieving actually takes place after the execution of the young man. But the author puts grieving right in the middle of the scene to stress its importance. The author does this to highlight the fact that the central element in this story is not the young man, but rather, David’s grief. And we just need to take a moment to make the comment that grieving is important. As Christians, it is not only okay to grieve, but it is good and right to grieve. But we should grieve in the right way, and over the right things.