When we face disappointment, sorrow, despair and outright opposition that leaves us bewildered with hurt, pain and hopelessness, then there is a Biblical text that will help us. We all need a jerk into action at some time in our lives; an applied force that will redirect our focus when worry and sorrow turns our noonday into midnight.
In the film “The Sound of Music” the children of Captain Von Trapp perform a puppet play jerking the strings so that the puppets respond to the music as they sing along. Often we feel as if someone is jerking us around like a puppet. We don’t want the strings to be cut lest we fall like a sack of potatoes, but God comes inside us and gives strength so HE can cut the strings and set us free with enabling power to work on our own with inner divine strength.
Saul and Jonathan were dead, killed by the Philistine forces, and in particular felled by their archers. As David was sorrowing and lamenting his pain he speaks a word of wisdom that echoes to us all, “And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son: Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.” [2 Samuel 1:17, 18]
David’s sorrow manifested itself in remedial action. Out of that grief there was a need to redirect the attention of the people of Judah. The king and the crown were dead and David wrote a song that the daughters of Israel might sing, but beyond that exigency there was a need purge their sorrow in constructive labour.
We will all face sorrow at some time and the tendency is to shut oneself away and browse on what might have been. Out of that negative attitude there can emerge a critical spirit against God. David, when he sinned with Bathsheba, was faced with a dilemma and as the resultant child lay sick unto death, he prayed upon the matter, he said this: “But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” [2 Sam 12:23]. In other words, the situation cannot be altered, life must go on. “History does not correct itself in its own sequence,” something new and refashioned appears.
Rather than contemplate sadness and misery we need to cut out some new destiny; become industrious in the things of the kingdom. The healthiest thing in this world is work, it is the highest therapy. We may have undertaken some work for God and it seems to have failed, then throw yourself into something akin to it, and consume your time. Get away from the known and humdrum and do something special that excites you.
From personal experience work is the best therapy for crisis situations. To bury oneself in one’s work is better than being prematurely buried through worry. We all need distractions to help us cope with heart-rending ghettos of emotional deprivation. I was employed in secular work until I was fifty, and only then became a full-time minister. After the weekend services were over, it was work as usual on Monday morning, and so if it had been a bad day, I didn’t have time to become miserable and worry, and if it had been a good day, I didn’t have time to purr with satisfaction and boast in achievement.
There is health in an 8-hour day of regular disciplined vocation. The straight jacket of such confining yet necessary work is beneficial in many respects, not least to take one’s mind off oneself and onto greater demands. There is a tendency for most of us to think too much about ourselves.
When I was superintendent of the Metropolitan Region I visited many ministers where the wife went to work to supplement their income because the church was too small to keep them. My recommendation was always “why don’t you go to work and let your wife look after your children?” Their response was consistent, “I’m Bible College trained and need to be about my ministry” — but Paul was a tent maker! If they could learn the value of an eight-hour day in secular employment they may have understood their flock better, and many of the minor problems of church life would have been resolved automatically without intervention!
