In this podcast, I apply more fully and specifically last week’s message from the story of Job on the three biblical phases of grief –to us personally and to our leadership.
We live in a culture that values control and continued ascent through life. We like things rising, whether that be the stock market, the economy, the growth in our churches, or our conquering of problems. The problem is we are in a season of descent and decline. This pandemic’s disruption of our life plan reveals the illusion we were ever in control.
There are three main approaches to the enormity of grief around us and our loss of control. The first, and most common, is to get busy and try to keep the momentum going strong. We may strive to hold things together by embarking quickly on new strategies and plans. The problem is that by pushing the sadness of this season to the margins, we grow dull and fail to mature into fathers and mothers. The second response is to be crushed by the overwhelming tragedy in which we find ourselves, watching the news continuously, and losing any sense of a God-perspective.
In this podcast, I invite you to God’s approach found in a third way: Sorrow is a guest at our door. And the season in which we are living is holy ground. God is doing a fundamental reorientation of your life and mine. Our work is to allow Him to make us into the mothers and fathers of the faith the world so desperately needs us to be. How? By allowing God to break us open to depths of the soul we could not imagine!
May God use this podcast to equip you and your church to be a safe, attentive space and container to the many people suffering around you.
Pete Scazzero
May God bless you as you listen and lead others around you for Jesus’ sake.
