How Long Can I Mourn the Loss of a Loved One?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:33

We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, How long can

01:39

I mourn the loss of a loved one? And as we kick this episode off, Tim, what Bible verse do you have for us?

01:45

Tim Mullett Yeah, Ecclesiastes 3, 4 says, There's a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

01:53

So, there you go. Harrison Okay, so is that, so based on a verse like that, what is your understanding then to the, you know, when asking the question,

02:03

How long can I mourn the loss of a loved one? Tim Mullett Well, I think at the very least, like if you were to read a verse like that, then you should come away from a verse like that thinking there's a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

02:17

Like you should come away thinking that at least the idea, like the concept of there being some definable time to where it's appropriate to mourn and to weep exists.

02:29

You know, whether or not there's like large measure agreement on how long that time actually is, it does seem like that's a very clear passage which says that there is such a thing as a time to mourn in general, right?

02:41

And then there's a time, so there's a time to weep, but there's a time to laugh, right? There's a time to mourn, there's a time to dance.

02:47

Meaning, like you should be able to conclude at least from that, that the idea of just perpetual, indefinite mourning is not really a biblical idea in general.

02:59

Harrison Yeah, yeah. You're definitely not going to, you're not going to, people aren't typically mourning and dancing at the same time, right?

03:06

These times aren't overlapping necessarily. Jared Yeah, so, like there's, if you were to read a little bit earlier,

03:14

Ecclesiastes 3 .1 says, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, right?

03:19

So there's a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

03:30

So there's a, there's an appropriate time, right? There's a season and time for every matter under the sun.

03:36

And the Christian life, you know, obviously, like we're not like the pagans who grieve as those who have no hope.

03:42

So the Christian life is not meant to be a life that is filled with continual, perpetual, indefinite, life -dominating mourning.

03:50

So there's a time where, there's an appropriate time for that, and then there's a time where it no longer becomes appropriate for that.

03:56

But that, I mean, that's definitely a hard sell for people in general. Yeah, yeah.

04:02

Like McMeaning, I don't think that, like it's one thing to say that there's an appropriate time to mourn, right?

04:11

And then you need to move on, but then it's quite a different thing to actually look at another human being and say,

04:18

I think you've moved beyond like the appropriate time where mourning is allowed at this point.

04:25

And so you need to think about what you're doing there. And, you know, I mean,

04:30

I think there's a wide variety of reasons why that's the case, but then I think this is one of those topics where there's a lot of things that have conspired to basically bring us to this point where you're not really allowed to talk about this topic.

04:46

And, you know, part of that is because who knows who might be going through intense times of mourning right now.

04:53

But then I think we, as a church, we really haven't prepared people very well to mourn and to grieve very well.

05:00

And we haven't taught them what biblical mourning looks like as compared to pagan mourning. And I think, you know, by and large, you know, it's just, you know,

05:10

Kibler Ross and all that, you go through the five stages of grief and, you know, take however long it takes to get to the other side of it.

05:18

And that's different for every single person. And so we've moved away from like a more biblical idea of what mourning and grief looks like to where there are appropriate times and places for this.

05:31

And then you move beyond that and you're expected to exercise certain control over your emotions at that point to a point where there's just no expectations upon anyone to be responsible for their feelings at all, but to be in charge of their feelings at all either.

05:49

So the idea of emotional self -control is utterly foreign to us in general.

05:55

So then, you know, when you're talking about a topic like this, we don't have the social mechanisms in place anymore to even understand what's being communicated.

06:04

And then if you try to talk about what those social mechanisms actually were, you may get into trouble pretty quickly.

06:11

But yeah, and that kind of leads into the second question that I was wondering, you know, when it comes to this topic,

06:19

I mean, I think a lot of people as you were saying earlier, I think a lot of, most people in our society maybe would, you know, like let's say someone, you know, they lose, like, their mother or their father or something like that.

06:34

You know, that's not an insignificant loss, right? And so it's understandable for a person to mourn that loss.

06:45

But then I think most people would probably say like, hey, you need to take as much time as you need to mourn this kind of loss, right?

06:55

But then it seems like, you know, God is essentially saying like, you know, there is an appropriate time for that, but it's not like a, it's not necessarily like a take as much time as you need, right?

07:11

It's more like, you know, there's a time for that and then there's a time to move on, essentially.

07:19

So why is it that God is prescribing a time of mourning that has a definite ending to it, as opposed to just saying, as opposed to just telling us, you know, like what the world tells us to do, take as much time as you need.

07:39

I think a lot of people would probably hear what we're saying here and they would say like, hey, that doesn't sound nearly as loving as just take as much time as you need.

07:49

So why does God do that? Because He's obviously a loving God. I mean, God is a loving

07:56

God and so everything that He tells us to do is, you know, for His glory and for our good. So how is this for His glory and for our good?

08:06

Yeah, well, I mean, I think if you, part of the way that you try to answer something like that is just to think about the kind of societies that used to exist.

08:14

Meaning like, if you were to watch, I don't know if you've ever watched Downton Abbey with your wife or something like that.

08:20

I have not. Good, you have retained your man card. No, but I mean, like there's deaths that happened in the family and you can just imagine like period pieces and things like that where they would wear black for a period of time because they were, quote unquote, in mourning or something like that.

08:40

And so you had social mechanisms that we used to have that would define like specific periods of mourning for people in that way to where, you know, you wear your black for a period of time to say now

08:51

I'm in a time of mourning and then, you know, you take off your mourning clothes and you face reality at a certain point.

08:59

But, so we don't, we no longer have those kind of mechanisms anymore. And in fact, what's happened is we basically surrendered to this idea that mourning is person -specific and sometimes it takes longer for certain people than it takes for other people.

09:17

Therefore, you need to get through it somehow, right? It's just kind of kind of passively happened. You're going to get to the other side.

09:23

You know, and a lot of that is just related to the psychological kind of books that have been put out on this thing.

09:29

You know, the most popular is the five stages of grief to where you have to get through all those five stages and there's no definable time period and everything else.

09:36

But then you look at that and you say, well, why would God have things,

09:42

I mean, like, you know, as you read the Bible, like, Ecclesiastes is saying there's a time to mourn, right?

09:48

There's a time for everything. But there's actual defined mourning periods in the Bible. Meaning, like, they mourned for 30 days after the death of Moses.

09:57

I mean, the typical standard Jewish mourning period was seven days. So they would mourn for seven days. You know, you have exceptional times of mourning in different ways, but I mean, you can just look up, you can look up these words in the

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Bible and you'll see that they were thinking on a definite kind of timetable. And what's happened is, it's like, obviously, like, if you're a human being you can look at someone and you say, hey, well, like, if in the

10:20

Bible their standard mourning period was seven days, does that mean that you're not going to feel sad after seven days, that you're just going to shut off your emotions like that and you're just going to, you know, move on, right?

10:30

Not think about it anymore, not feel sad anymore, everything else. Like, part of the problem, though, is what's happened is that we've surrendered to this idea that people can't control their feelings.

10:41

Right, right. Like, they have no responsibility whatsoever to control their feelings. And to ask someone in general, like, if you think about it this way, to ask someone in general to control their feelings seems to be profoundly monstrous, right?

10:56

Yeah. So, whether it's talking about your child, like, your disrespectful child trying to ask them to control their feelings, whether it's talking about, you know, the transgender person like, who basically has certain feelings, they feel certain things, pretty profoundly, you're telling them to deny those feelings.

11:10

The same -sex, attracted kind of person, you're telling them to deny their feelings. You're talking about a woman, like, telling a woman that, like, hey, you know, what you feel isn't true, it's not connected to reality.

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Like, in all these ways, like, we've lost the idea that people have any ability whatsoever to control their feelings, even.

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And then, when you add on to that, like, grief, like, grieving a loss, like, sadness that comes from a loss, it's like, if there's any, like, if there's anything that's more understandable, like, a more understandable reason to feel sad is because people have died, right?

11:48

Right. Death is an enemy, like, and one day God's going to wipe every tear from our eyes, everything else, and so it's obviously normal and right and natural to grieve the loss of a loved one.

11:59

Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus, and so you have, like, this presupposition, you're not able to control your feelings at all, that is, and then asking someone to control their feelings is seen as monstrous, and then if you leap, if you add on to that, like, a victim category, they're a victim, like, in this case, they would be a true victim, right?

12:21

Unless they, you know, were the murderer themselves or something along those lines. I mean, they would be a true victim in this kind of scenario, then you're really, like, you're blaming the victim, you're shaming the victim and everything else, but your question is, well, why is it, why would that be better, right?

12:35

Why would God think having some sort of definable mourning period is better than this indefinite kind of mourning forever?

12:44

And I think it's just obvious, like, meaning, you know, God's given the human beings a lot more to do in life than to sit around in crippling sadness and despair and perpetuity forever, right?

12:58

So, like, if you're just gonna, like, wallow in your grief and wallow in your mourning and wallow in your sadness and wallow in your misery,

13:07

I mean, one, it's unpleasant, right? Like, it's an unpleasant thing to do, but then, you know, and the person might instantaneously respond to that, like, as if that's a choice or something like that, and that's based on the assumption you have no control over what's happening, right, at all.

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But then, it's like you have other things to do. Like, if, the only way, I mean, typically, the only way that a person can just sit there and wallow in their grief and perpetuity forever is if someone is gonna subsidize it.

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Do you understand what I mean? Like, meaning that someone's gonna have to foot the bill for you to sit there in your grief indefinitely for a long period of time.

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And the very mechanisms that God's designed to help you get past your grief are the things, like, working, right?

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Getting up, working with your hands, devoting yourself to a purpose greater than yourself, devoting yourself to something outside of yourself, right?

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So, like, the idea of saying, hey, for a time period, let's say it was seven days, like it was for the Jews in that way, there's typical standard mourning period where you're not gonna, where you're gonna be like Job and you're gonna sit there and cut your scabs with pots, you know, or whatever.

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I mean, there's a time to do that to where you just say, hey, I need to mourn the loss of everything that just happened.

14:24

But then, it can't go on in perpetuity forever because you'll starve to death and you'll die, right?

14:29

Right. Like, if you just sit there in your mourning, you're gonna starve to death and you're gonna die. But then, the only way that people get to just sit there in perpetuity forever mourning is if someone with a checkbook comes along and lets them.

14:44

Do you see what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So, like, why would God prescribe certain time periods like that?

14:49

It's because He has other things for you to do, right? He has other things for you to do in the world besides just sit there and feel sad, you know, in perpetuity forever.

14:56

And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to talk about this in a cavalier way as if, like, this is not a serious topic or that it's not, like, the loss of the loved one is just no big deal.

15:08

You can just shut it off like a water fountain or something like that. But you do have to think, well, what is the Bible saying here and what does it mean, you know, and how do we apply it in these kinds of situations?

15:19

Yeah, so, I know you mentioned, you mentioned a little bit, um, like, certain time periods but then reading through the

15:27

Bible, do you think that there is a certain prescribed time period for us, like a definable, it's, it's this long or, you know, it's actually this long when it comes to mourning for us today?

15:41

Yeah, I mean, the typical period, you know, as you read through the Bible, the typical period is that seven -day period and I think that that's just such a shock to the system, to modern viewers and modern listeners because we just, we don't have any category for any of this and so it just sounds so crazy but then if you think about something like a seven -day mourning period or something like that, like if we were to think about things like that, like seven -day mourning period, even a month mourning period or something like that, like life typically has to go on in general and so, like meaning,

16:14

I think men in general often they handle mourning a little bit better than women in general because, you know, often that's tied to just practical considerations, hey, we have to move on, right?

16:26

We can't just stay here. Right. We can't just stay here forever. We have to move on and then, like if we don't, we're going to starve to death and we're going to die and we, so we have to get back, you know, so a lot of it's just related to practical realities like getting yourself back to work and going back to your job.

16:44

All these things are saying I have to turn a corner, I have to move on because I have responsibilities that people actually are depending on me to be fulfilling and so, in general, those are the very things that keep you from being trapped in mourning and often like being trapped indefinitely in mourning, it comes about due to the fact that you're in a situation that allows you to be idle with that.

17:08

So, when you have people who have no expectations of you to move on and they're going to subsidize it and they're going to leave you in it, right, and you don't have a whole lot to do, then what typically happens is you can get trapped in just an indefinite kind of mourning loop, basically, right?

17:26

Yeah, yeah. And so, so yeah, I mean, I think that the idea of, like in the

17:32

Bible, like if you were just to say, hey, yeah, their standard mourning period was seven days, that would be like, yeah, that's typically about as long as you're going to be able to sit there, sit around and do nothing, right?

17:43

Right. Before you start starving to death or whatever else, like meaning like there's going to be some biological things that are going to prevent you from just camping out in this period indefinitely, but then

17:54

I think social media often adds to this as well, meaning, like social, like for people, like social media is, has, is kind of a means of helping or encouraging people to grieve indefinitely, because like their social media account just becomes like a diary of, of their emotional pain, that they're trapped in indefinitely, forever, and then you have people who are in, you're just like constantly encouraging that, right, and responding to that, and hey, you know, thinking about you, praying about you, sorry for your loss over and over again.

18:36

So sometimes people can kind of get addicted to that feeling of, like, like I'm going to put all my pain out here without any breaks on it whatsoever, and then everyone is kind of responding to that, and that just can kind of keep people trapped in it as well, but yeah, yeah, so I mean,

18:54

I would say that in general, there's obviously a time to mourn in the proper sense of the word, like, meaning experience intense, you know, crippling kind of sadness, and just take yourself away from your normal responsibilities of life.

19:13

I think there's a time for that biblically, and then there's a time to say, we have to take, take the next step here, move on to the next thing for sure.

19:21

Now, what do you, you know, let's say someone goes through like a seven -day mourning period, and then they come to the end of that, it's time to get back to regular everyday life, and they're still sad.

19:38

Yep. You know, what, I mean, I mean, what do you do? I mean, do you keep mourning because you're still sad, or, you know, are you like, is it unhealthy in some way to start getting back into the normal everyday thing, your normal everyday routine when you're sad in that way?

19:58

Well, I think a lot of people in that kind of situation, they feel guilty for moving on because it feels like it's like dishonoring to the person and dishonoring to their memory just to say, okay, hey, yeah,

20:11

I'm just gonna let myself move on, and so a lot of what's happening is you have different societal expectations that are clashing in these moments.

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Meaning, like, if you're moving away from a society that says, hey, there are defined mourning periods, right, to a society where it's just indefinite, like, in perpetuity, take as long as you need, then what that doesn't do is it doesn't train you to be the master of your emotions, to have emotional self -control in that way.

20:42

It basically puts you at the mercy of your emotions. You see what I mean? So, like, the periods of mourning in the

20:49

Bible are meant to be mechanisms which train your emotions. So you're training your emotions to respond to these societal mechanisms.

20:58

You say, hey, step one, let's define an appropriate mourning period. Okay, an appropriate mourning period is seven days, if that's what, you know,

21:04

I mean, that's what it was in the Old Testament, but I mean, generally speaking, there's exceptions. Like, you have a remarkable 30 -day mourning period for Moses, but, you know, whatever.

21:13

Let's say it's a month. If you can manage to get out of work for a month, I don't know how many people could actually do that, except for maybe homemakers or something like that.

21:25

But let's say it were a month or whatever. If you were to train your emotions to say, hey, I'm taking off my mourning clothes and turning a corner on that,

21:33

I mean, there is a very, like, real reality that, is that possible? Well, it's obviously possible, right?

21:40

I mean, it's obviously possible to train your emotions to respond to these kind of things if you, but you have to accept that that's actually what you should be doing.

21:48

And so, you know, one of the things that's amazing here is that as you read the Bible, there are certain people who are prohibited from mourning at times.

21:58

You know, from mourning at all. Okay? So, meaning, like, just to give you some examples of that, like, so what we're talking about is saying, hey, you know, what if a person doesn't feel like they can turn it off after seven days or something?

22:10

Well, God expected certain people in the Bible to not ever turn it on. Okay? So, meaning, like, you know, with the death of Nadab and Abihu, Aaron was prohibited from publicly mourning at all.

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He wasn't allowed to tear his robes. He wasn't allowed to, you know, have a gloomy expression or anything. Like, he wasn't allowed to do that because, like, the issue was they incited a rebellion against God and if Aaron, you know, the chief priest, were to be seen to grieve the loss of that, that would call into question the justice of God there.

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So, in other words, he had a responsibility to defend God in that kind of scenario and not, and to, like, cull his natural emotional allegiance to his family members.

22:53

Like, God had to be sanctified in the presence of people, right? In that way. So, that tells you that God has a different standard of emotional self -control than what we do, right?

23:06

Like, another example of that is like David after the death of Absalom. You know, Absalom, like, incites a rebellion against David, you know, sleeps with his wives in the presence of everyone else, you know, starts a coup, tries to take over the kingdom and there's men that, like, are on David's side who are giving their life in order to put down this rebellion from a stubborn and rebellious son and David is telling them don't even kill him as the law tells him, right?

23:33

And so, then when David receives news that Absalom died, he's sitting there saying, oh, Absalom, oh,

23:39

Absalom, my son, oh, Absalom, and you know, Joab basically rebukes him for this and says, hey, you know, the people, instead, they won a great victory, put their life on the line for you and now they're slinking away as if, you know, something, they've done something wrong, right?

23:58

And you better go out there and turn off the waterworks, you better go out there and let everyone know that, like, their lives are more valuable to them than your stubborn and rebellious son that's trying to kill you, right?

24:09

And so, like, you can think about situations like this and that tells you that God has that category for emotional self -control even as it relates to the loss of a loved one, meaning, like, there's situations where it's totally inappropriate even to grieve at all in the presence of anyone, right?

24:27

Because of what that act means and what it's actually saying and so I think if you were to, if we could return to this idea that, you know, our feelings aren't our masters but we're the masters of our feelings, if you could return to that kind of idea, then what that would mean is you would say, hey, when

24:46

I go through a loss, like, a significant loss, there's a time to give my feelings a free reign, right?

24:57

And then there's a time to return to, like, self -control in the biblical sense, like, mastery of your feelings.

25:03

There's a time to become the master of your feelings again in that way, right? So there's a time to let it out and then there's a time to take it back, right?

25:12

And that's basically what we need is we need to return to that kind of notion that we have any kind of responsibility for how we feel in general.

25:21

So then, you know, to that person who basically is, they've let themselves go for seven days and now they're unable to take it back, right?

25:31

Like, you're basically saying, well, what then, you know? Well, if they would, step one, say, hey, I'm the master of my emotions, not the other way around, right?

25:40

I'm not defined by my feelings. I'm the master of my feelings, right? I have self -control. I have emotional self -control.

25:46

Like, I can't just let my heart feel whatever it wants to feel indefinitely, forever, right?

25:54

So, step one is that. Step two is, well, you define what is an appropriate license to give to sadness, right?

26:04

So, what is an appropriate time period, you know, and what, you know, it needs to be definable.

26:10

It can't just be indefinite, question mark, whoever, take as long as, like, what is it, you know? So, set a time period in that way, but then when you're getting to the end of that time period, what you are doing, you know, what you're supposed to be doing, what people used to know that they were supposed to be doing is you're getting to a point where you're saying, okay,

26:28

I've, there's a time for every activity under the sun, I've given myself to grief, and now it's time to be responsible, move on, and not let myself wallow in this anymore.

26:41

But then, what's happening is that you have a whole society who has devoted itself to the idea that if you try to suppress those feelings in any way, that you're fundamentally harming yourself, right?

26:54

Right, yeah. You're not showing yourself enough self -care, right? Enough self -care, right?

26:59

So it's our responsibility to validate people's feelings, affirm people's feelings indefinitely, not to suppress them because that would be emotionally harmful to you and probably, like, you know, physically harmful to you or something like that.

27:12

And so we've declared war against the idea of emotional self -control and so then what happens is people, they just feel like they have to just emote indefinitely forever or else they're doing violence to themselves and they're doing violence even to the memory of their loved one.

27:29

I mean, so those mechanisms, in other words, they help people to say, like, to have defined parameters for what is appropriate and acceptable grief, right?

27:39

But then if you don't do that, then, like, you know, we don't grieve as those who have no hope. Well, what does hopeless grief look like?

27:48

Well, it's indefinite, right? Like, it's indefinite, it goes on and on and on, it doesn't, like, it's not

27:54

God -centered, it's not, like, rejoicing in hope, right? It's not hope -filled, it's just despair, indefinite despair, sorrow, despondency, period, right?

28:07

And so, like, if you aren't able to say what's appropriate, then you're not going to persuade me that what you're going to do is appropriate.

28:16

Do you get what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, so I guess I have two questions there, and the first one being related back to the whole, you know, there are certain times where you don't mourn, right?

28:30

And you gave a few biblical examples where God commanded that. So does that mean,

28:35

I mean, should we take anything from that to say, like, hey, there are certain people that, you know, in a normal situation you would mourn losing that person, but then because of actions that that person performed in their life, we're no longer going to mourn their loss?

28:57

like, one example that I can think of, and maybe it's not like a perfect example, but one example

29:04

I can think of would be like John Piper and his son Abraham Piper, where Abraham Piper has essentially made it like his life goal to get as many people away from Christianity as possible, right?

29:27

Right. And now, you know, is that the same thing as trying to overthrow like the kingdom of God's chosen people, the

29:36

Israelites, you know? I don't know. I don't know how they all stack up, but then would that be an example or at least like, you know, close to an example of like, hey, we're no longer going to mourn, you know, if you're

29:52

John Piper, if you're the Piper family, we're no longer, we're not going to mourn his loss because of the actions that he carried out in his lifetime or are those just, you know, specific to those, you know, those points in the

30:11

Old Testament? Like, is that specific to David? You know, that kind of thing.

30:17

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want to say that it's specific to David or it's specific to Aaron. You know, so my impulse would be to say, hey, we need to think about, you know, obviously, whatever's written in former times is written for our instruction that the man of God may be equipped, you know, for every good work here.

30:35

So, if, I would be concerned if someone couldn't think about conceivable parallels to today in that way.

30:45

You get what I'm saying? Mm -hmm. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I think if, I mean,

30:50

I think with the David kind of coup, like, what you have is you have loyalty to the kingdom, right?

31:01

Like, in that way? So you have, like, meaning, like, you have a stubborn rebellious son who started a rebellion against, you know, the kingdom.

31:07

He's trying to overthrow you. And then, typically, when you win a military battle, you celebrate.

31:14

Like, part of what you do is you're going to celebrate the victory because you know that it comes at, like, the expense of lives in that way, right?

31:22

Yeah. There's many people who came and they were, they laid down their life in order to protect you for this purpose and now you've won.

31:28

So you have a responsibility in that way to rejoice this mitigating against your responsibility to mourn, right?

31:35

Like, in that way. So I was thinking, like, there are human obligations that could keep a person from mourning that I could conceive of to where you have, um, you have to prioritize, like, grief over rejoicing in this way, right?

31:51

Does that make sense? Yeah. And which way you prioritize is going to say something about what you care about the most and that's what was a shame to David in that way, right?

32:01

What was a shame is that his heart cared more about his son than it did the kingdom in that moment and that was a rebuke to him.

32:10

Meaning, so, the kingdom, you have responsibilities to the kingdom, you have responsibilities to the son.

32:16

Now, as it relates to Aaron with Nadab and Abihu, maybe that's a clear, like, a closer parallel to what you're talking about in general.

32:27

Like, meaning, you have Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire before the Lord. He consumes them.

32:33

What needs to happen is that Aaron needs to vindicate God in this moment. What God did was just. What God did was right, right?

32:39

My loyalties are to God. So, you have moments where you have to say, hey, my loyalty is to God and that supersedes my loyalty to family, right?

32:48

And then there's moments where you say, hey, my loyalty is to others. It supersedes loyalty to family, too, in that way.

32:55

So, I think that there, yeah, I mean, I'm open to the idea that there are parallels to this. I probably need to put some more thought into what those actually are, but I don't like, um, you know,

33:05

I think like, mourning the death of an apostate may be, um, an example of that kind of thing.

33:12

Like, to where you have different loyalties that are coming, um, to you in that way.

33:18

Um, now, I would think it would be, um, you can imagine a parallel if, like, your apostate son started persecuting

33:31

Christians and was killing them and everything else. How that would ramp it up a little bit to maybe even a more clear scenario, right?

33:39

Yeah. To where, like, finally, you achieve the military victory over, you know, your son, and then if you're going to go along in mourning for days and days and days in that celebration that your fellow

33:49

Christians are no longer beheaded, that says something about your priorities at that point for sure, right? Now, if God were to act an immediate judgment against an apostate son, that may be an even clearer parallel, a tighter parallel, if that makes sense.

34:06

Uh, where God burns, you know, burns them up in an instantaneous act, that would be maybe a clearer, but,

34:12

I mean, I think that's something that people should put some thought into, is it appropriate to mourn the loss of an apostate, um, particularly one like Abraham, like in that way, and, you know, and, um,

34:26

I don't think people should respond to that kind of thing emotionally, I think they should actually say, hey, if there is a difference, what is the difference, if that makes sense.

34:35

Yeah, yeah, okay. And then the second question I had was, you know, we've been, we've been talking about this idea of a period of mourning, um, and, one of the things that I was thinking through is, you know, you, we, we've been looking at it from the perspective of like the person who is mourning for far too long, right?

34:59

And, and why God, why God is essentially trying to protect us from that, but then, it kind of seems like there would be, you know, a benefit for the person who's tempted in the opposite way, right, as well.

35:12

Like, they got it, God's trying to encourage the person who would say, uh, hey, I'm just going to keep going on like nothing's wrong, you know,

35:22

I've just got to keep working and that, and that's how I'm going to, that's how I'm going to cope with this situation, with the loss of a loved one or whatever it is, you know, is there,

35:33

I mean, is there any truth to the statement, like, that God is, is giving this period of mourning as, like, a protection for that person as well, to help them actually, truly, like, work through the sadness that they might feel?

35:51

Sure, I think so, yeah, I think that there are, um, you know, the Bible says you rejoice with those who rejoice and you weep with those who weep, and people would kind of absolutize that command to where, you know, anytime someone is weeping, you have some moral responsibility to weep indefinitely with them,

36:07

I think that's inappropriate, but, I mean, I think at the same time, like, if you feel nothing at the loss of a loved one, it could be that you are callous, right?

36:17

It may be revealing something about, like, your character in that kind of way. Now, I mean, at the same time, you know, if you, if you have a family member who has lived a full life, like, a life to the full, right?

36:33

So, they're 90 years old, they've walked with the Lord their whole life, I would think that grief should be a little bit different for them than it should be, like, um, you know, the death of a child or something like that, in that way.

36:49

Like, meaning, like, if you do, like, we are Christians, like, and the Bible clearly says we don't grieve as those who have no hope, and, so, we should be grieving in a hopeful way, and if you see, hey, like, there does need to be something in you that says, hey, a disappointed man wants to die, and after that, it's judgment.

37:08

And, when we're talking about the subject of grief in general, like, how long do you want them to live, right?

37:14

Do you want them to live to their 150 or something like that? So, like, I think part of just, like, grieving the 90 -year -old person who's died, who's lived a long, full life, and now their body is broken down to the point where they're no longer even useful, like, there is a symptom which, like, death for them is kind of a mercy, and it's better for them to die than for them to carry on forever and ever in, like, just a state of, you know,

37:39

Alzheimer's or dementia or being bedridden or whatever. So, I think our sadness is mitigated with, like, we should have sadness, but then it's mitigated with joy.

37:50

Like, so, the Christian perspective of death is there's sadness there and there's joy there, right? So there's joy mixed with sorrow, and then when you have someone who's lived a full life, there obviously,

38:01

I think, should be this, hey, I'm excited for you. You get to see this thing that we are supposed to hope in, that we've been hoping in our whole life, right?

38:12

You finally get to see the Lord, and I'm grateful for you for that, and you no longer have to suffer from that arthritis and, you know, the osteoporosis and the memory loss and the pain and everything else.

38:24

So there's that, but I mean, I do think that, so, meaning, like, you know, there could be conceivable situations where you feel sad, but you feel more happy than you feel sad, you know?

38:35

And that would be a normal Christian kind of response, but then, like, there is like a, you know, in the idea of like the quote -unquote untimely death or something like that, there is, like,

38:46

I think, the shock of death that was unexpected and, you know, you got the phone call and it was horrible, right?

38:56

Like, in that way, and then trying to process it and trying to deal with it and not trying to just, like, bury your head in the sand and say, hey,

39:02

I'm going to ignore it and move on and whatever else. I think there is like a, there should be a moral response to death is unnatural and it's an enemy and it's wrong and it's right to grieve because Jesus grieved, right?

39:18

So, there should be all that and, like, to the extent to which a person just feels nothing, it may either reveal hardness in their heart, callousness in their heart, or just kind of a foolish bravado there, right?

39:32

I'm just going to manage this on my own in that way without any help. yeah,

39:37

I think that that period, you know, biblical mourning is meant to, you know, like,

39:45

I think it's just meant to be an end of it itself. It's a time where we, you know, rightly grieve the damaging effects of sin and it's a time where we do need to be thinking in that moment, not just, like, feeling, right?

39:58

We do need to be thinking biblical thoughts and telling, renewing our mind and telling ourself what's true in these kind of moments and, like, telling us when we're true over and over again to the point where we feel what's true even, right?

40:12

So it's a time where, you know, it's a reasonable time to just heal and to tell yourself, speak truth over yourself and to tell yourself the true things about, you know, about God, that God's good, right?

40:24

His purposes will stand and His ways are right and, um, and He's not doing anything wrong here, right?

40:32

He's not promised me anything, like, um, He's not promised me, like, a long, full life with this person.

40:39

He's, um, like, He's right all the time. I'm going to vindicate His character. I'm going to look forward to, you know, the realization of His purposes in that way, but yeah,

40:47

I think that it is a good time for people um, to draw closer to Him, be sanctified in the midst of that.

40:55

Uh, it's a trial, right? Testing our faith to produce steadfastness and help us be more like Him, for sure. So what, so, what should, you know, what should we do when people, when people we know are, you know, either refusing to mourn altogether or they're mourning, like, far beyond what would be considered, like, the acceptable time of mourning?

41:22

I mean, how should we respond to those people? Because I think most people would say, well, hey, you just got to, you know, hey, encourage, you just encourage them, you know, take as much time as you need.

41:34

ministry of presence type stuff. And so, so is that the answer or, you know, is there more to it? Is there less to it?

41:40

How do we respond to those kinds of people? So I took, in seminary, I took a class, so I had a lot of good biblical counseling teachers and then

41:48

I had one that wasn't so good. It was more psychology -based or whatever and it was a class on crisis counseling, essentially.

41:55

And the premise, I mean, the whole premise of the class was essentially just to say that the only things that Job's counselors did right was they sat with him in silence for as long as what they did, right?

42:08

And so, like, in other words, and what the teacher called this was the ministry of presence, right?

42:14

Just be there for them. And I think, you know, I think there's a lot to be said about that, um, but not as an indefinite strategy that has no ending whatsoever and that's basically the problem of the course is that you basically have a ministry of presence, like whenever someone goes through pain and suffering, your only responsibility to that kind of person is just to indefinitely sit there with them, right?

42:40

And feel whatever they're feeling, so it's just like empathy, it's the sin of empathy extended out in perpetuity forever, right?

42:47

And it's like, but you can't actually do that, no one can do that, like I can't quit my job, you know, in order to emote with you indefinitely forever, right?

42:58

Because you refuse to accept what's happening, happened, and move on, right? And put one foot in front of the next and seek the honor of the

43:06

Lord, so in that kind of class, I mean, it was funny because, you know, we went through the five stages of grief and all that, and I wrote a paper basically just trying to argue that it was a

43:20

Christian's responsibility to speak truth to people in the midst of grieving, and my professor basically said, he gave me,

43:29

I didn't know if I was going to get a good grade on this because my paper was basically disagreeing with everything that was happening in the class, but he looked at my paper and he said, you know, he gave me an

43:40

A, he's like, I have to give you a good grade because you did a lot of work on this, and, you know,

43:45

I can't deny that you did a lot of work on this, but I disagree with everything you said in this paper, and I wouldn't let you near anyone to counsel them.

43:56

I strongly recommend you staying away from anyone who's ever grieving for the rest of your life, you know, until you change your mind and recant all this, you know, mean stuff that you're saying in here, but, yeah, that was one of my more funny seminary paper reviews at that point, but, no,

44:10

I mean, I, that's pretty good, that's pretty good. The problem was,

44:15

I mean, we left the Bible behind in this class, and, like, there was no Bible mentioned whatsoever, it was just, you know, the basic assumption is that it's our responsibility to validate a person's feelings indefinitely, and to enter into their world and just feel what they're feeling indefinitely, forever, with no breaks, so you don't, you know, it's basically, you don't shame the victim, you don't blame the victim, you don't hold the victim responsible for anything, you just sit there and feel, and I think that's certainly true,

44:42

I mean, I think that's certainly true, there's a time to shut up, right? Like, you know,

44:49

I don't think the first thing you do when you see someone who's in the midst of suffering is just to go up to them and say, hey, you know what,

44:56

God works all things together for good, so we'll see them in heaven, man. You know, I don't know that that's necessarily the first thing you say, it may just be that they're, don't even know what's going on right now, and the best thing you can do is, yeah, go sit there with them, right?

45:11

Yeah, I guess you can't, I guess you can't say like, right after they get off the phone, they just got the call that they lost a loved one,

45:18

I guess you can't be like, look at your watch and be like, you got seven days, man. Then you're going to get it from me.

45:26

Yeah, no, so I don't think that's true. I mean, I don't think that's the first thing you should do, but like, meaning,

45:33

I'm not saying it's wrong, you know, if something's true, it's true,

45:40

I mean, but you can obviously do that in a very cavalier and sensitive kind of way, and I think, you know, a lot of people, they just, when they're in the middle of, you know, planning a funeral and all the stuff that's going on and like, just all these questions, like you can step in and try to help them out and help them answer some of those questions and you can be a great help to them in those kind of moments, like just practically, you know, helping them with food and, you know, helping them arrange certain things and everything else, you know, to the extent to which they want them and just, you know, being there for them, being a shoulder for them to cry on, sure, that's all true, but I mean, at a certain point, they're going to start telling you the theology of the thing, and when they start telling you the theology of the thing,

46:22

I think you do need to be a Christian brother and sister to them. You know, I went through a,

46:27

I mean, I'm still going through a really weird trial right now related to some strange health problems that I've been going through and that don't have good medical answers right now, but I mean,

46:42

I've had, you know, person after person after person love me enough to try to snap some sense into me and help me to, you know, rebuke me if I'm saying things that, rebuke me even if I'm saying things that don't sound very biblical in certain ways, and man, that's been a blessing to me and I appreciate that, and I think godly people should, there may be, like, you go through a trial, you may have some crazy thoughts that you need to repent of and that are wrong, you know?

47:12

And that's fine. And so, I think Christians shouldn't be, like, the kind of people who are just, like, in charge of their suffering, right?

47:23

Like where they come up with all these rules on how you need to care for me in the midst of my suffering and how you need to talk to me in the midst of my suffering and, you know, what

47:30

I think I need to hear. You know, often you don't even know what you need to hear. So, you know, god's put other people around you to help wake you up and tell you things you don't want to hear and help, because they're thinking probably a lot more clearly than you are, right?

47:44

And they can be a blessing to you and, you know, I mean, I've had family members who have told me things that I needed to hear and that's been a blessing to me and that's been helpful to me.

47:56

You know, my dad sent me sermons to listen to and sermons to watch in the midst of, you know, my current situations and they've been good, you know, and that's been helpful to me.

48:04

And, you know, I have brothers who will snap some sense into me if I'm tempted to give myself over to self -pity and, you know,

48:12

I have church members who will laugh at me in the midst of my trial. And I appreciate that, you know, like that we can all find a little bit of humor in some of it, you know.

48:24

So, I mean, I think that's good. That's good. Like, we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously to the point where we can't, you know, like where everything, if you just have to walk on eggshells around a person, then you know that, man, something's going on, right?

48:42

So, I think there's a point where, yeah, you give a person a lot of space, but once they start telling you their theology and once that theology is awful, you know, it's like really bad, like you can love them in those moments and try to gently help them and, you know, they're either going to like it or they're not, you know, but that's not, they need, people who are grieving, they do need to hear certain things sometimes, too.

49:05

And I think the error of Job's friends was not just that they spoke. I think the error,

49:11

I mean, I think they grieved with him appropriately, right? They sat with him appropriately, they grieved with him appropriately, and then when it became the time to speak, the problem was

49:19

God says they didn't say the things that were right about him, and that's the problem, right? So the issue is not like just shut up forever and don't say anything.

49:27

The issue is make sure that what you're saying is right and not just jumping to conclusions and, oh, well, you're going through something bad, so it must be something wrong with you, you know, kind of thing.

49:36

Now, it could be, it could be, but they were wrong in that situation, for sure. well,

49:42

I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on, so I think this is a good thing to talk about, especially because like we said in the beginning, it really is kind of this thing where you're just not allowed to have any sort of like expectation of someone who is dealing with a legitimate loss, you know, you're just, it's just, it's basically the expectation is take as much time as you need and, and, you know, just figure it out and just, you know, sit around and be sad forever if that's what, if that's what it takes.

50:22

And that does trap people, yeah, it just traps people indefinitely in their sadness when they, instead of helping them to move on.

50:29

and like a hopelessness, right, like you've been bringing up. Hopelessness and despair, yeah. Yeah, and so,

50:36

God giving us a certain prescribed, you know, this expectation that hey, there is a time for mourning that is finite, it has an end to it, that's helpful.

50:47

It helps us to work through understanding and, and coming to terms with whatever the loss was and, you know, it helps us to begin to transition back to normal life coming out of that, that mourning period, you know, and, and really, like you said too at some point during the episode, that expectation from God helps us to, you know, work through the grief as well because we start getting back to normal life and, you know, going back to work and, and, and, you know, whatever else is going on and so, so, but you're just not allowed to really say any of this or have any expectation of the person who is grieving and, and so I think it's good to try and talk through this and have the, you know, have this conversation because I don't know how often we think about how we grieve as a society and, but then it's a normal part of every person's life.

51:48

I mean, everyone has lost a family member before or if they haven't, they will, you know,

51:54

I mean, that's just a normal part of living in a fallen world and so we need to know as Christians how to be the kind of people who grieve as those with hope, not those without hope.

52:06

Jared It should be like an actual goal we have, you know, and that's part of what's, part of what's, because this conversation, these kind of conversations are impossible to have, it's almost as if you're not really allowed to make that an appropriate goal even.

52:23

you know, you, you have to prepare, like the issue is you do have to prepare for the dark day before you arrive and part of preparing for the dark day is to say, hey, what does grieving with hope look like actually, right?

52:34

And what does it not look like actually and then in that moment say, Lord, I need you to help me to do this in a way that honors you, right?

52:42

I know that it's not going to honor you just to indefinitely wallow in self -pity and sadness and despair and hopelessness forever, like that's not what you've, that's not what you, that doesn't honor you.

52:55

So help me to prepare for that day knowing, knowing that it can happen at any point and we're not promised tomorrow.

53:03

absolutely. So guys, again, we thank you for all the support they show us week in and week out.

53:09

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53:21

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53:35

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53:44

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