The ever-growing body of literature on productivity overwhelmingly agrees with what we all know by experience: interruptions reduce our productivity. So naturally, most of the literature focuses on ways we can reduce our interruptions because they distract us from productive work.

And for good reason: many of our interruptions are distractions. But not all interruptions are distractions. Some interruptions are more important than our current productivity. The problem, however, is that we often struggle to recognize these important interruptions in the moment.

As Christians, the stakes rise when we consider that what may appear at first as a simple interruption is actually an unplanned assignment from our Lord. So, how can we discern the difference?

First, I should define what I mean by interruption, distraction, and unplanned assignment.

Interruption: An unplanned occurrence that urges you to shift your attention away from one of your responsibilities to something else.
Distraction: An unplanned occurrence that tempts you to shift your attention away from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance.
Unplanned assignment: An unplanned occurrence that calls you to shift your attention away from something you think is a good use of time as a servant of Christ to something Christ may consider a better use of the time.

“Not all interruptions are distractions. Some interruptions are more important than our current productivity.”

Of course, God has not given us a formula we can apply to all situations. In fact, an interruption that’s an unplanned assignment on one day might be a distraction on another day. In other words, this is an issue of discernment. And discernment is learned by constant practice (Hebrews 5:14) as we are transformed in Christ by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2).

But the Bible does provide principles we can use in honing our discernment. Two stories provide needed help.

Apostolic Distraction

In Acts 6, a potentially explosive situation was developing in the new, rapidly growing church. “A complaint by the Hellenists [Jewish Christians from Greek-speaking nations] arose against the Hebrews [Jewish Christians native to Palestine] because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution” (Acts 6:1).

We’re not told why these vulnerable women were being neglected. But it’s clear the problem wasn’t being addressed, and frustration was spreading. The complaints carried strains of ethnic tension. As the past few years have reminded us all, such issues can quickly sour relationships, break trust, and sow suspicion. So, the situation was growing serious, and an appeal was made to the apostles to get involved.

This situation came as a potential interruption to the apostles’ work. Was it a distraction or an unplanned assignment?

After the apostles prayed and discussed this issue together, here’s what they discerned:

It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. (Acts 6:2–4)

The apostles discerned this was a distraction.

This example illustrates how much we need discernment. An interruption may initially appear (to us or others) as God’s unplanned assignment for us because the issue is important, and we might even bear responsibility to make sure it’s addressed. But it is still a distraction if our direct involvement is not more important than remaining focused on our primary callings. Christ has given this assignment to someone else.

Parabolic Assignment

In Luke 10, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, who, while traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, came upon a severely injured man lying in the road, a victim of robbers. This situation interrupted the Samaritan’s journey. Was it a distraction or an unplanned assignment?

Jesus’s story works as an example because all of his listeners knew it was based on real events. Jericho Road was notoriously dangerous because of robbers; real travelers came upon real injured people.

Here’s what the Samaritan man discerned:

He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.” (Luke 10:34–35)

The Samaritan man discerned this was an unplanned assignment.

This example also illustrates how much we need discernment. An interruption may initially appear to us (or others) as a distraction. The issue may be important, but it doesn’t appear to be our responsibility. And it’s going to consume precious time, and perhaps other resources, and derail or delay our plans. But it’s an unplanned assignment since our direct (and costly) involvement is more important than remaining focused on our planned work.

Discernment Principles

What principles can we distill from these two scriptural examples to help us discern what might be a distraction or an unplanned assignment? Consider three.

1. Clarify your calling.

What has God objectively called you to focus on in this season of life? It’s important to recognize what season we’re in because our callings change over time. In a different season, it was right for the twelve disciples to serve tables (remember the feeding of the five thousand). But once Jesus ascended, he left his men as specially appointed apostles, as witnesses to his life and resurrection and as his mouthpiece as teachers. Clarifying your clear (not just aspirational) calling in any given season of life can help you discern what God wants you to prioritize.

2. Seek counsel.

When you struggle to discern whether you should resist or receive an interruption that doesn’t require immediate action, seek the advice of wise, spiritually discerning counselors. The apostles had each other. Who are your trusted counselors?

3. Ask yourself, “What does love compel?”

When the Samaritan man saw the wounded man in the road, I’m sure he would have had numerous reasons to just keep going. But for the sake of love, he took up this unplanned assignment. On the other hand, it was for the sake of love that the apostles resisted the distraction of getting personally involved in making sure the widows were fed. They discerned others could address this need, but others couldn’t give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word like they could.

Martial Art of Discernment

Most martial arts teach students how to respond in self-defense when attacked. No attack situation is ever the same, so students learn techniques that can be adapted for whatever a situation requires. And they grow in their skill by continually practicing in increasingly difficult situations.

Learning to distinguish unplanned assignments from distractions is like a martial art. No interruption situation is ever the same, so we must learn techniques we can adapt for whatever a situation requires. And our “powers of discernment [are] trained by constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14).

“Clarifying your calling in any given season of life will help you discern what God wants you to prioritize.”

Rarely is it clear at first if an interruption is a distraction or an assignment. This ambiguity pushes us to pray, “What should I do, Lord?” It pushes us to embrace humility in seeking counsel from others. And it pushes us to test our hearts. Are we being governed by our love for God and neighbor or by our selfish desires? Do we see time, money, reputation, and productivity as stewardships we’ve received from our Lord to be used as seems best to him, or do we see these resources as “ours”?

Cultivate faith-filled responsiveness to God’s leading. Be willing to say no to a distraction that feels urgent to faithfully focus on your clear God-given task at hand. And be willing to say yes to an inconvenient, costly interruption to your plans to faithfully respond to a God-given, unplanned assignment.

And when in doubt, err on the choice that you discern requires you to extend the greatest love to another and exercise the greatest faith in God.

The subordinate goal of this message is to explain and defend the claim that truth triumphs through pleasure. The ultimate goal of this message is that you, and your people through your ministry, would feel — and forever feel — the greatest pleasure in God through Jesus Christ.

To say that the ultimate goal of this message is a heart-experience — an enjoyment, a spiritual emotion — in you and your people is not a contradiction of the universal biblical teaching that the ultimate goal of all things (including this message!) is the fullest exhibition of the glory of God, filling the new creation without rival. And the reason it’s not a contradiction is because God’s ultimate goal for all things will not be reached until the bride of Christ experiences her fullest possible pleasure in her beloved Jesus Christ, who is God, blessed forever. Amen (Romans 9:5).

I’m an Edwardsean lover of the glory of God down to my toes. When Edwards speaks of
God’s glory as the goal of all things, my heart soars:

It appears that all that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, “the glory of God”; . . . In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fullness is received and returned. Here is both emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair. (The End for Which God Created the World, 526, 531)

Amen. Could anything be more God-centered, God-exalting, God-entranced! And yet tucked away in that God-besotted paragraph is an explosive statement worth giving your life to: “In the creature’s . . . rejoicing in . . . God, the glory of God is exhibited.” That is, “In the creature’s pleasure in God, the glory of God is exhibited.” If that is true, then truth triumphs through pleasure. And for you and your people to attain that pleasure is to share in the triumph.

So, to explain and defend this claim from Scripture, I will try to clarify four connections.

The connection between truth and ultimate reality
The connection between ultimate reality and God
The connection between God and preciousness
The connection between preciousness and pleasure

1. The Connection Between Truth and Ultimate Reality

The biblical words for “truth” (emet and amunah in Hebrew and alētheia in Greek) are used with many different connotations and nuances. When you preach, you don’t take a definition from Piper or MacArthur at a conference and lay it on that text. You pay close attention to the peculiar usage of the word true or truth in that text to see that it carries its own weight.

What I’m going to do here is take hold of two of those many connotations in order to draw out the point that’s relevant for this message, especially the connection between truth and ultimate reality.

First, then, most commonly we speak, and the Bible often speaks, of “truth” as a characteristic of things we say, a characteristic of assertions or statements or propositions. For example, Proverbs 12:17: “Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.” When we think of truth in this way, it means that our statements correspond to reality. If I say, “My wife is 5 feet, 7 inches tall,” that would be true. But if the reality is that she is 6 feet tall, that statement would not be true. It would not correspond to the reality.

But, second, what is not as common in our speech, but is also a view of “truth” in the Bible, is that the reality to which true statements correspond is called “truth.” For example, when Peter was being delivered by the angel from prison in Acts 12, Luke writes, “[Peter] went out and followed [the angel]. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real [or true], but thought he was seeing a vision” (Acts 12:9). Or Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:8, “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true.” Meaning: We are not fake apostles. We are real.

This is the meaning of truth that I want to take hold of and press into. Truth not only states reality; it is reality. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am . . . the truth.” And Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” — the real God, the God who is reality. And Jesus Christ is the truth not only because he speaks the truth, but because the ultimate reality about which he speaks is himself.

So, two things have become clear. One is that the Bible uses the word truth or true to refer to what is real, not just statements about what is real. What is real? Truth refers to reality. Truth is not just the opposite of a lie; it is the opposite of an illusion, the opposite of the unreal.

And the second thing that has become clear is that we are confronted with the question of ultimate reality, that is, ultimate truth. When Jesus said, “I am . . . the truth,” and Paul said you serve “the . . . true God,” both are pointing us to the fact that there is such a thing as ultimate reality.

So, we turn to our second point.

2. The Connection Between Ultimate Reality and God

This is the most obvious. But we need to see it and say it to get us where we are going — to preciousness and pleasure. What is ultimate reality? Which we have seen is the same as asking, What is ultimate truth? I think the most fundamental response that God ever gave to that question is found in Exodus 3:13–14.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

The very least God intends to communicate when he says, “I am,” is “I! A personal being! I am talking to you. I am a person. This is not wind. Or thunder. Or an earthquake. Or a waterfall. I am talking to you. And I am about to electrify you with this truth, this reality: ‘I am who I am.’”

And the next most obvious thing he means is, “I exist. I am real. I am not a myth. I am not imagined. I am not an opiate for the masses. I am not a Freudian projection of wish-fulfillment. I am real. I am more real than the ground you stand on, more real than the sun in your solar system, the skin on your bones, the galaxies at the end of the universe. And the reason I am more real than they are is because their reality is dependent on my reality. Their being depends on my being. Only I can say, ‘I am who I am.’ Everything else must say, ‘I am because he is.’”

This is the way ultimate truth talks: “I am who I am.” Ultimate truth says,

Nobody made me this way. I simply am. I never had a beginning. I never became. I simply was, from all eternity. Nor will I ever end. I depend on nothing to be what I am — no cause, no support, no counsel. Instead, everything depends absolutely on me. Everything is secondary to me. The universe is infinitesimal to me. I carry it in my pocket like a peanut. I never develop, and I cannot be improved. I am absolute fullness, perfection. I conform to nothing outside myself, and therefore I am the standard and measure of all truth and goodness and beauty. There are no constraints from outside me to prevent me from doing what I please. My actions are always free, never dictated from outside. The good pleasure of my will always holds sway. I always act in perfect conformity to the infinite value of my inexhaustible fullness. I am who I am.

For many years I have circled back to this text like a lightning bug staring at the sun and have found it to be electrifying — that God simply is. Explosive. Wild. Untamable. A brightness that changes absolutely everything. God is ultimate reality. That is, ultimate Truth.

Which brings me now to the third point.

3. The Connection Between God and Preciousness

So, step one was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality, and we are led to see that there is an ultimate reality. And the second step was that this ultimate reality is God, absolute reality, “I am who I am.” And now step three: the connection between God (reality, truth!) and preciousness.

Is ultimate reality ultimately valuable? Is ultimate reality of infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimately precious? Let me ask the questions in another way (and then tell you why I’m doing it): Is ultimate reality ultimate value? Is ultimate reality infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimate preciousness? Perhaps you see what I’ve done. I’m going beyond saying God has value, has worth, has preciousness, and I’m pushing it further to say that God is value, and God is worth, and God is preciousness. Worth and value and preciousness are intrinsic to God. They are aspects of who he is.

Here’s why I go there. The vast majority of human beings are not born again. Our calling is to do what we can to win them. They are perishing. And we do not want them to perish. “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. . . . I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22).

But if we ask any of those people, before they are born again, whether ultimate reality (God) is valuable, the only categories they have in their minds (the mind of the flesh) for assessing value are the categories that make themselves the measure of God’s value. So, they might say, “Well, if there is ultimate reality, I would hope that he or she or it would help me with my marriage, or my job, or my health, or my children, or my finances. That would be valuable.” In other words, the measure of God’s value would be the measure of his usefulness in helping them attain the pleasures that this world provides.

“If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure.”

Some of those people come to your church. And many of your people are talking to them every week. I’m suggesting that this new set of questions might jar them loose from the limits of their categories. (It might jar you loose!) Is God ultimate value? Is God infinite worth? Is God ultimate preciousness? Not just, Does God become useful to me? but, Is God in himself infinite worth and value and preciousness?

I think if we don’t answer that question with a resounding yes, either explicitly or implicitly, our theology, our worship, and our obedience tend to go off the rails. Profound things are at stake here in the way we live, in the way we do ministry.

So, let’s look at some Scriptures to see whether or not we have biblical warrant for giving that resounding yes.

Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure. Heaven will be heaven because God is there. That is the ultimate promise: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). That’s the consummation of the kingdom, and that is ultimately why the kingdom is a treasure. God is a treasure. God is infinite preciousness.

2 Corinthians 4:6–7

God . . . has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

The glory of God in the face of Christ is treasure in the jar of clay. The presence of God is the presence of infinite preciousness.

2 Peter 1:3–4

[By God’s] glory and excellence . . . [God] has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

The promises of God are precious, because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God, the presence of Christ. Here’s what I lay myself down to sleep with each night: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). The end and goal of all the promises is “live with him.” We know that “in [his] presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

1 Peter 1:18–19

You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

The blood of Jesus is not precious because it saved us. It saved us because it’s precious. And it’s precious because he’s precious.

1 Peter 2:4–6

You come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. . . . It stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,     a cornerstone chosen and precious.”

This is God’s evaluation, not man’s: in God’s sight God the Son is precious.

Revelation 21:10–11

He . . . showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare [precious] jewel.

The glory of God filling the city is the city’s preciousness.

Revelation 5:12

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and mightand honor and glory and blessing!

To be sure, the creative power of the Lord and the saving deeds of the Lord are sometimes given as reasons for why we praise him as worthy. But oh, how artificial it would be, especially in view of this text, to abstract the deeds from the Person, and to say that his actions create his worthiness, rather than that his worthiness is being shown through his actions. No. No. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” means worthy is the Lamb, and therefore he was slain, and accomplished everything, because he is infinitely precious.

“The promises of God are precious because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God.”

From these texts and many others, I can conclude infinite worth, and infinite value, and infinite preciousness are in God. God the Father enjoys God the Son as infinitely precious (1 Peter 2:4–6). Preciousness is in the Trinity. Preciousness is from eternity. It belongs to the nature of God.

Which brings us now to our fourth and final connection.

4. The Connection Between Preciousness and Pleasure

So, the first point was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality (not just statements about reality), and we are led by Scripture to see that there is an ultimate reality, ultimate Truth. Second, this ultimate reality is God. Absolute personal reality. “I am who I am.” Third, this God is infinite worth. He is in his very nature infinite preciousness.

Now, how does pleasure connect to this preciousness and bring about the triumph of truth? We see the answer when we ask the Bible, “What is the fitting response of a human soul to infinite preciousness?”
You decide what the answer is from four clusters of biblical texts.

Matthew and Hebrews

First, we go back to Matthew 13:44.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field [a very precious discovery], which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The human response that correlates with treasure is joy. A joy that is so deep and comprehensive that it prompts one to happily lose everything to get the treasure — to get the preciousness.

Then we see this lived out in Hebrews 10:34 with a beautiful sacrifice of love:

You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one [more precious, more lasting].

And the human response that correlates with that more precious, more lasting possession was joy: “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.”

Philippians and Habakkuk

The second cluster of texts is from Philippians and Habakkuk. Twice in Philippians Paul says to rejoice: “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 3:1), and then doubly, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Why is that so fitting? Why joy?

He answers in Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Joy in the Lord is fitting because the Lord has surpassing worth. He is infinitely precious.

He is more precious than food, and life itself, as Psalm 63:3 says, “Your steadfast love is better than life.” But this is most graphic in Habakkuk 3:17–18:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,     nor fruit be on the vines,the produce of the olive fail     and the fields yield no food,the flock be cut off from the fold     and there be no herd in the stalls,yet I will rejoice in the Lord;     I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

In other words, God himself is so precious in himself that when life has become impossible, and starvation is imminent, this man of God will rejoice. Because the proper and fitting response of the human soul to infinite preciousness is joy.

Hebrews and Psalms

The third cluster of texts is from Hebrews and Psalms. When Moses faced the choice of whether to remain in the riches and comforts and securities and pleasures of Pharaoh’s house, or lead God’s people through the wilderness at great cost to himself, here’s what happened in his soul according to Hebrews 11:25–26.

[Moses chose] rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

On the one hand I have pleasures, so goes Moses’s logic, in the land of Egypt that are fleeting. And on the other hand, I have greater wealth, greater preciousness, than all the treasures of Egypt, in the reward that is coming to me in the presence of God. The pleasures with God are greater and longer than the pleasures of Egypt, because God is a greater reward, a greater preciousness.

And David in Psalm 16 has no hesitancy to call our experiences in God’s presence pleasures.

My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. . . .

You make known to me the path of life;     in your presence there is fullness of joy;     at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (verses 9, 11)

The gladness of the heart now is a foretaste of those pleasures, as we taste and see even now the preciousness of the Lord.

Matthew and 2 Thessalonians

The final cluster of texts to show us which human response is fitting to God’s preciousness are texts that call this response love, and bring us finally to the triumph of truth.

Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 10:37,

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

What makes this text so relevant and so radical is that the kind of love he’s talking about is not the kind of love we have for our enemies. This is not blessing those who curse us or doing good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27–28). This is the love we have for our children and our parents. It is the kind of love we have for those who are especially precious to us. To paraphrase: “Whoever loves their most precious human relationship more than Jesus is not worthy of him — won’t have him.”

We are not talking about peripheral or secondary or optional affections here. This is life and death. And the response that corresponds to the superior preciousness of God in Christ over our most precious human possessions and relations is love — the kind of love that finds greatest pleasure in the Beloved. The kind of love that says,

I love your commandments     above gold, above fine gold. (Psalm 119:127)

More to be desired are they than gold,     even much fine gold;sweeter also than honey     and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:10)

This is delight, enjoyment, pleasure. It is the fitting human counterpart to infinite preciousness.

Which brings us finally to a text that connects this pleasure with the triumph of truth.

Beloved Truth Is Triumphant Truth

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9–12 Paul is describing the final appearance of the lawless one whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth.

The coming of the lawless one is . . . with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth [the same kind of love we were just talking about] and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

They did not love the truth. They didn’t treasure the truth. They didn’t find pleasure in the truth as precious. And so, they did not believe the truth, but instead had pleasure in unrighteousness. “The truth” — here it is the word of truth, the gospel of the glory of Christ. This truth is to be loved supremely. We are to find supreme pleasure in the truth because it is the revelation of supreme preciousness.

When, in the final glorification of the saints, the bride of Christ experiences her supreme pleasure in the infinite preciousness that God is in Christ, then the supreme worth, the ultimate value, the infinite preciousness that God is will be fully exhibited in the new creation, and truth — ultimate reality, God himself, infinite preciousness — will be vindicated. Truth will triumph through the pleasure of God’s people in God. Not without it.

Audio Transcript

How do we return to normal life after life-altering loss? Today’s question is from a broken woman named Andrea. “Dear Pastor John,” she writes, “my husband went home to be with the Lord two months ago after a four-month battle with pancreatic cancer. We were both divorcees who met in October of 2019. God restored our lives, and we married in October 2020. I’m very thankful to have been married to my late husband. The Lord had restored our lives and relationship. There was so much joy to live with someone who loves you so much. My late husband had a son, now twenty years old. We expected to spend the rest of our lives as a family unit.

“But our blissful days together were short, and our worlds came crashing down. We held on to the word of God, expecting a miraculous healing right to the end. He was not healed and didn’t recover. In fact, he suffered a lot of pain in the end. Many of our friends supported and prayed for us. But now, after my husband’s passing, I can’t find any purpose in life. Is it normal to feel this way? Friends ask me how I am, if I’m returning to work. I can only say, ‘I’m okay.’ But deep in my heart I’m not okay. How do I continue to live my life? My heart feels very heavy. I try to listen to sermons and read the Bible, but nothing seems to be getting into my heart. Thank you, and God bless.”

Andrea asks, “Is it normal to feel this way?” — namely, not being able to find purpose in life after her husband passed away. There are so many factors that affect how we function after a major loss that it’s hard to say what is normal. Everybody’s situation is so different: age differences, employment differences, health differences, family differences, wider relationships, church, location, gifting, maturity, faith, and on and on. There are so many differences.

But I think I can say, with some degree of certainty, that the more your life is embedded in or intertwined with what or whom you’ve lost — whether it’s your spouse, job, health, home, or child — then the more normal it is to feel disoriented and aimless. That’s true. So, I think the answer will be closer to “yes, it is normal,” than to “no, it’s not normal.”

Andrea’s real question, it seems to me, is not so much “Am I normal?” but “What do I do?” As she puts it, “How do I continue to live my life?” Here are some thoughts from Scripture, because God is the one we have to turn to ultimately, isn’t he?

1. Wait for the Lord.

The first thing I would say is to wait for the Lord. Don’t assume that the way you feel today is the way it will always be. In time, the Lord will change things. He will, which means that this is a God-appointed season of waiting.

I’ve learned this over years and years of watching my own heart and counseling lots of people. Americans, or maybe you could say modern people in general, want quick solutions to our problems. We don’t like waiting, but God is seldom in a hurry. It’s amazing. God is simply seldom in a hurry. It’s almost as if he prefers the slow pace of healing and strengthening.

Early in my ministry — in fact, six weeks after starting my pastorate in the summer of 1980 — I preached a sermon about waiting from Psalm 40. It’s called “In the Pits with a King” because David says in Psalm 40, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” That’s the key sentence.

He doesn’t say how long he waited, and I’m glad he doesn’t tell us it was a week or a month or a year. Instead, he says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1). Yes, eventually God does. David goes on:

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,     out of the miry bog,and set my feet upon a rock,     making my steps secure.He put a new song in my mouth,     a song of praise to our God.Many will see and fear,     and put their trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:2–3)

David is looking back on a season of misery. He calls it “the pit” and “the miry bog.” In this situation, he tells us his strategy: “I waited” and “I cried to the Lord.” Again, he doesn’t tell us how long, whether a week, a month, or a year. This is the calling of all Christians in various degrees, at various times in this life. Nobody escapes it. We all will find ourselves in seasons where we have no choice but to wait for the Lord — unless we’re going to rebel and throw in the towel, which would be very foolish.

David even gives us an explanation of what God was doing in this appointed season of waiting. He says that God eventually comes, sets his feet on solid ground, and puts a song in his mouth. The promised result? “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” In other words, this is evangelism, and sometimes it happens in our own lives. God draws people to trust in him as they watch us pass through the pits that we have to wait in.

David’s waiting and eventual deliverance was, in effect, for the good of other people’s faith. They trust the Lord because David’s patient waiting moved them to trust the Lord. One of my favorite hymns puts it like this:

He knows the time for joyAnd truly will send it when he sees it meet,When he has tried and purged thee, duly,And finds thee free from all deceit.

So, Andrea, God has his purposes for your season of loss, sorrow, and even aimlessness. Trust him in it. Wait patiently for the Lord. He will come. Psalm 23:3 says, “He restores my soul.” Right now, your soul feels numb, maybe even dead and unresponsive. That’s why you must wait. God promises, “I will restore,” and the word restore means “cause to return your soul.” It’s as if the soul is languishing. It’s numb. It’s dead. God says, “I will restore your soul.”

2. Dwell on the preciousness of Christ.

Second, I would say to think much about the preciousness of Christ alongside of the preciousness of your husband. When your memory calls up sweet and wonderful experiences with your husband, let the power of those affections intensify your love for Christ — because Ephesians 5 says that your marriage had that aim in the first place. Marriage is meant to be a portrayal, a drama of Christ’s love for the church and the church’s commitment to Christ. It was meant to help us feel the wonder and pleasure of what a relationship with Christ is like.

As your memory brings to your mind and to your heart how much you and your husband loved each other, how committed you were to each other, translate those affections. You also could use the musical analogy of transposing those affections into another key, so that husband-love is translated into, transposed into, the music of Christ-love.

“God has his purposes for your season of loss. Trust him in it. Wait patiently for the Lord.”

Say something like this to your husband: “I miss you so much. You were very, very precious to me. There is a huge hole in my life where you were.” Then turn to Christ: “Jesus, I know you are even more precious than that. If I did not have you, Jesus, I would miss my very life. There would be a great, unfillable hole in my soul. But I do have you, Jesus, and you are my true husband. I pray that you would help me feel for you and more the intensity of what I feel for the man I have lost.”

I think the reason God gives us so much pleasure in our spouse is to give us a taste of the pleasure that there is in belonging to Jesus. It follows that the pain we feel with the loss of our spouse can be another intensification of what it means to belong to Christ.

3. Pray for God to search your heart.

Third, I would say to pray Psalm 139:23–24:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!     Try me and know my thoughts!And see if there be any grievous way in me,     and lead me in the way everlasting!

The reason I say this is because we should always honestly reckon with the possibility that our love for our spouse could be a disordered love, meaning it might be encroaching on our love for Jesus.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother [in other words, family members] more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). We should regularly go before the Lord and ask him to reveal our hearts: “Lord, is there anything, is there anyone who is competing with you for my supreme affections?” If this has happened, it will almost certainly make the loss of that person more disabling than it ought to be.

4. Learn from this season.

Finally, while you’re waiting for the Lord to restore your joy and purposefulness, ask him to reveal what he aims to teach you in this season that you could learn from him and from the Christian life in no other way.

The reason I say that is because of Psalm 119:67–71. These verses are amazing. Verse 67 says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” Then there’s verse 71: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

In other words, don’t waste your sorrow, Andrea. Don’t waste this season of loss. In it, God has gifts for you and, through you, for others. Ask him what they are, and then take hold of them. Perhaps write them in a journal, and then let him use you in the lives of others. He will set your feet on a rock. He will put a new song in your mouth. Many will see and fear — and put their trust in the Lord.