We have a mission statement at Desiring God with several lines in it. The last line goes like this: “. . . grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures.” That’s what we exist to be, and that’s what we encourage other ministries to be. So, one of the main reasons I’m here is that I believe Truth78 is one of those ministries — grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures.

When the founders of this ministry, David and Sally Michael, were my colleagues in the ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church (where we served for decades together), this was the glorious impact that they had on me and on the ministry to our children: everything was grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures. They left a legacy not unlike that of John Bunyan.

Spurgeon loved the classic Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. He loved it because it was grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures. He said,

[Bunyan read the Bible] till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, “Why, this man is a living Bible!” Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline. The very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the word of God. (Autobiography, 2:159)

God-Centered Discipleship for Children

When David wrote us at Desiring God, asking me to come, he said,

My hope is that John will do what he has always done to validate the significance of faithful, God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, doctrinally grounded, mission-advancing discipleship beginning with the youngest of children.

The key to that long list of hyphenated phrases (that I love) is to realize that the phrase Bible-saturated gives rise to all the others. So, I want to try to pick one of those — namely “God-centered” — and reflect with you about its meaning, its rootedness in the Bible, and how ministry to children sheds light on it. In other words, it’s not only true that being God-centered shapes children’s ministry (which it does), but also that doing ministry to children shapes the way we think about God-centeredness. It goes both ways. Being God-centered shapes the way we do children’s ministry, and doing children’s ministry thoughtfully shapes the way we think about God-centeredness.

Beyond Contextualization

For example, what doing ministry to children clarifies for us is the limits of what’s called contextualization. Contextualization ordinarily means that you bring a truth to a culture or a group and you try to find some idea or practice or language in the group that would help make this truth understandable. Then you put the truth in the terms of something understandable in the target culture, all the while trying not to lose the truth. We all do this, for example, if we go to Germany and we have to use German in order to get our idea across.

But when children are the “target culture,” so to speak, what they make plain is that, to make truth about God understandable, we must do more than connect our ideas with concepts they already have. Because what we discover in their little minds — their glorious, Godlike little minds — is that they don’t yet have sufficient concepts for grasping many biblical realities. So, contextualization proves to be an insufficient method of communication. It’s important but insufficient. What needs to be added is this: concept creation. It’s not the adaptation of biblical reality to already-existing concepts but the actual creation in the mind of new concepts, new structures of thought, new ways of viewing reality.

Children are not unique in this regard. They are just a very special case. The Bible teaches that all human beings, apart from the renewal of the mind that comes through being born again, do not have the categories of mind for seeing reality for what it really is. For example, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says,

The natural person [what we are apart from the transforming effects of the Holy Spirit] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So, every pastor, every Sunday school teacher, and every parent has to deal not only with levels of mental maturity but with levels of spiritual capacity. There are important biblical realities that simply will not fit into the human mind until new concepts, new structures of thought, new ways of viewing reality are created by the Holy Spirit through parents and Sunday school teachers and pastors. This is what I’m calling concept creation. The ministry to children simply makes this necessity crystal clear.

We must so teach, and so pray, as to create categories of thought that don’t yet exist, so that strange and wonderful biblical realities will make sense.

Strange and Wonderful Truth

Let me mention a few of those biblical realities that don’t fit the natural human mind.

1. God rules the world, including the sins of human beings — like Pilate’s expediency, and Herod’s mockery, and the mob’s “Crucify him,” and the soldiers’ brutality (Acts 4:27–28) — yet in such a way that God does not sin as he governs sin.

2. God governs all the steps of all people, both good and bad, at all times and in all places, yet such that everyone is accountable before him and will bear the just consequences of his wrath if they do not believe in Christ.

3. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, divine and human, such that he upheld the world by the word of his power while living in his mother’s womb.

4. The death of the one God-man, Jesus Christ, so displayed and glorified the righteousness of God that God is not unrighteous to declare righteous ungodly people who simply believe in Christ.

These kinds of mind-boggling, category-shattering truths demand our best thought and our most creative labors — especially when trying to communicate them to children (or at least to prepare children to someday be able to grasp them).

Biblical Defibrillator

Here is the way all this relates to my focus on God-centeredness. As I have tried to make a case for God-centered everything over the past fifty years, what I have found is that many Christians simply take that concept and fit it comfortably into their already-existing mental framework. They do not see how explosively contrary it is to things they hold dear but are in fact mistaken or out of proportion.

“Being God-centered shapes the way we do children’s ministry.”

I look at what the people do in worship, or preaching, or counseling, or teaching, or curriculum development for children, and I realize they don’t mean what I mean. They don’t mean what I mean by God-centeredness. It’s not having the same outcome. The phrase “God-centered” is fitting into a concept they already have, and it’s not the same as mine. I’m really not communicating.

So, I have felt that something more is needed here if communication is really going to happen. I really do need not just contextualization but concept creation. The reality I see is being adapted to another view of reality and being lost in the process, while the terminology remains the same.

What do you do to build into a person’s mind (adult or child) a reality that isn’t there? One strategy that I have used for many years is to state the reality I’m trying to communicate in such a shocking (and yet true) way that it requires either rejection or the biblical remaking of some part of the mind.

Let’s take our theme, God-centeredness, as an example. To awaken people to what I mean by God-centeredness, I have regularly used the phrase God’s God-centeredness. That phrase has a double effect. First, it’s strange: people have not used it. And second, it’s troubling: they don’t like it. Why is that? Because it implies that God does what he forbids us to do — namely, exalt himself and make himself central. It forces people to ask whether it might be right for God to do this but wrong for us to do it. And why might that be? And that is a very fruitful question. That might take us to glorious discoveries. Even our children will be troubled by the fact that God does things he tells us not to do.

So, what I’m trying to do is to create a concept, a view of reality called God’s God-centeredness, that does not yet exist in people’s minds (or in a child’s mind), so that when it takes root as fully biblical and beautiful, it makes all God-centeredness as radical as it really is.

Tour of Concept Creation

So, come with me, if you will, on a short biblical tour of how I have tried to do this kind of concept creation. This is what we have to do with our teachers in children’s ministry so that there is a trickle-down effect for the children as gifted teachers find age-appropriate ways of creating concepts in their minds.

There are about four stations on this tour.

Station 1: Awakening Through Provocation

I start with a provocative, shake-you-out-of-your-slumbers quiz to force people to face the issue of whether they will say God is God-centered or not. These questions could be adapted for different age groups, even for children.

Question 1: What is the chief end of God?
Answer 1: The chief end of God is to glorify God and to enjoy magnifying his glory forever.
Question 2: Who is the most God-centered person in the universe?
Answer 2: God.
Question 3: Who is uppermost in God’s affections?
Answer 3: God.
Question 4: Is God an idolater?
Answer 4: No, he has no other gods before him.
Question 5: What is God’s chief jealousy?
Answer 5: God’s chief jealousy is to be known, admired, trusted, obeyed, and enjoyed above all others.
Question 6: Is your enjoyment of the love of God mainly owing to the fact that he makes much of you, or is it mainly that he frees you to enjoy making much of him forever?

I press on these unusual questions because if we are God-centered simply because we believe God is man-centered, then our God-centeredness is in reality man-centeredness. But pressing the reality of God’s God-centeredness forces the issue of whether we treasure God because of his excellence or mainly because he endorses ours.

So, now people are agitated. The concept of God-centeredness isn’t fitting so neatly into their minds as they thought it would. They are troubled by the possibility that a way of thinking they’ve never dealt with might be true — namely, God’s God-centeredness.

Station 2: Validation Through Scripture

Now we flood the mind with Scripture about God’s God-centeredness. God’s eternal, radical, ultimate commitment to his own self-exaltation permeates the Bible. God’s aim to be exalted, glorified, admired, magnified, praised, reverenced, trusted, and enjoyed as a supreme treasure is seen to be the ultimate goal of all creation, all providence, and all saving acts. What I have found is that the following litany of God’s God-centeredness proves overwhelming to people, either winning them or losing them. Many professing Christians bury their heads in the sand of their own theological preferences and ignore the clear teaching of Scripture. But here’s what we find:

1. “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:5–6 my translation).

2. God created the natural world to display his glory: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

3. “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3).

4. “He saved them [at the Red Sea] for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power” (Psalm 106:7–8).

5. “I acted [in the wilderness] for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations” (Ezekiel 20:14).

6. After the people sinfully ask for a king, Samuel says, “Do not be afraid. . . . For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:20–22).

7. “Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act [in bringing you back from the exile], but for the sake of my holy name. . . . And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name . . . And the nations will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 36:22–23).

8. “[Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

9. “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that . . . every tongue [should] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

10. “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake” (Isaiah 43:25).

11. “Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Peter 4:11).

12. “Immediately an angel of the Lord struck [Herod] down, because he did not give God the glory” (Acts 12:23).

13. “. . . when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:10).

14. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24).

15. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Now, this Bible bath of God’s God-centeredness (God’s relentless self-exaltation) often creates a crisis, because people do not yet have a category for how God can be so self-exalting and still be loving.

Station 3: Clarity Through Objections

God’s God-centeredness is not megalomania because, unlike our self-exaltation, God’s self-exaltation draws attention to what gives us the greatest and longest joy — namely, himself — while our self-exaltation lures people away from the one thing that can satisfy their souls: the infinite worth and beauty of God in Christ. When God exalts himself, he is loving us. He is showing and offering the one thing that can satisfy our souls forever — namely, God.

Listen to how Jesus prays for us in his last hours in John 17: “He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you . . .’” (John 17:1).

“Don’t underestimate how the Holy Spirit can use God-centered teachers to build glorious concepts into children’s minds.”

He’s asking God to glorify God by glorifying the Son. Then in John 17:24, he prays for us and draws us into this glory: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.”

Lest we think we might see him in his glory and not be able to love him and enjoy him as fully as we ought, he adds this prayer in John 17:26: “[I pray, Father, that] the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” In other words, “When they see my glory, grant them to love and enjoy it (me) with the very love and joy that you’ve had in me from all eternity.”

This is God’s radical and loving God-centeredness. And to receive it requires a profound, Holy Spirit–given concept creation, not just the adaptation of a biblical reality to a fallen, man-centered mind.

If a person has the greatest treasure in the world, and he wants to share it, most people would embrace that person as loving. But if a Person is the greatest treasure in the world, and he wants to share it, many people will reject him as an egomaniac. For that to change, the mind must be renewed. God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the most loving act, since love offers what is supremely and eternally satisfying — namely, God.

Station 4: Awakening to Happiness

If God is merciful in shaping this new mental framework that we have seen in the Bible, people awaken to the fact that the pursuit of their happiness in God is, in fact, the fulfillment of God’s purpose to be magnified. God exalts himself as the all-satisfying treasure of the universe, and we magnify that greatness by, in fact, being supremely satisfied with him. God’s pursuit of his glory and our pursuit of joy turn out to be the same pursuit.

This is what Christ died for. First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ . . . suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” And what does he intend for us to find when we are brought to God as the greatest treasure in the universe? Psalm 16:11 says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Children can get this. Don’t underestimate how the Holy Spirit can use God-centered teachers to build glorious concepts into their minds. You say to the first and second graders in your class,

Let me tell you a story about two brothers. One brother was sixteen years old and the other was just your age. He was seven. The younger brother liked his older brother a lot. He liked him so much that nothing made him happier than to spend time with his big brother. He would rather be with his big brother doing things together than anything else.

Now, the big brother knew this. He knew that he was the greatest treasure in his little brother’s life. He knew that he had great value in his little brother’s eyes. So, on his little brother’s birthday, he gave him a box about the size of a shoebox. In the box was a note that the older brother had written. His younger brother opened it and read,

Here’s a gift to make you glad,Nothing wrong, and nothing sad.The best I have, I’m sure you’ll see:A fishing trip, just you and me.

Then you ask the kids in your class, “Do you think the older brother was bragging when he said that the best gift he could give his little brother was to give him a whole day of fishing with his big brother?”

The need is very great for the next generation to be rescued as early as possible from the natural man-centeredness with which we are born.

Years ago, my husband and I met a retired sociologist in Ontario who had studied groups of immigrants now in Canada. He told us, “In all my research, I have never seen an ethnic group that has thrived as much as the Dutch Canadians. In general, they have multigenerational nuclear families and success in their work. They are contributing to their communities, and they are content.” When I asked him how he explained their thriving, he said, “It’s from their Protestant work ethic; their dedication to God, family, and church; and the blessing of the Lord.”

What is the Protestant work ethic? Max Weber coined the term in his 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He stated that since the Reformation, Protestants have lived out their faith by diligently working in the vocation God has assigned to them. Weber believed Protestants worked efficiently and lived with discipline and frugality in order to give evidence of their salvation. Protestants themselves, however, would say they work to glorify, thank, and obey God.

But the so-called “Protestant work ethic” goes back further than 1904, or even John Calvin and the Reformation. It is really the biblical work ethic, and it goes back to creation.

Our Enduring Mandate

In paradise, Adam and Eve tended the garden of Eden. After the fall, sweat and pain entered the story. But even though some of our work is now burdensome, God gives blessings, joy, and fulfillment also. The creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish and subdue the earth, and to exercise dominion over the earth still holds (Genesis 1:28).

Throughout most of human history, parents and children worked hard simply to survive, to have food on the table and a roof over their heads. It’s the same in much of the world today. But in the West, we have a more comfortable lifestyle; we have technology and machines that do many of our everyday tasks.

So, does this mean that we and our children can take it easy? No, the biblical work ethic still applies. God designed us to follow his pattern in working six days a week and resting one (Exodus 20:8–11). He still calls us to do whatever our hand finds to do with all our might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). He still says if we are able-bodied but don’t work, we shouldn’t eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Teaching Our Children to Work

How do we as parents instill this biblical work ethic in our children? What might diligence look like in their lives? Let’s approach this task by answering the why, when, how, and what.

Why

First, why do we teach our children to work diligently? Because they too will be called to fulfill the creation mandate, and we are assigned to train them. We have approximately eighteen years to prepare them for adult life. It’s a gradual process that requires patience, repetition, wisdom, and prayer. Our goal is to equip them to provide for themselves and their family, and to contribute to the well-being of their community by loving and serving their neighbors, all to God’s glory. Then they will experience the by-product of a peaceful conscience and a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

When

Second, when do we start? Start very young with a few little tasks. Bless them such that they never remember a time that they did not work. Help them realize a big part of life is work, and that work is good. Fan the sense of excitement in very small children when they do what mommy and daddy do. So, involve them in the everyday tasks of running the household — running to get a diaper for mommy to change baby, picking up trash, loading and unloading the dishwasher. Buy toys that relate to work, like a toy lawn mower or kitchen. Ride that wave of excitement as it lasts, and then continue to require the work even when it’s not as fun.

That’s when they learn another lesson — perseverance. Remember, if they are able to toss their toys about like a tornado, then they are able to gather them into a bucket. Play is a huge part of childhood, and it’s valuable for learning about the world all around them, but between birth and adulthood, they learn to gradually decrease play-time and increase work-time. Sitting in front of a screen numbs them and stunts their mental growth, whereas creative play and work develop their minds.

How

Third, how do we accomplish this task? It’s not easy. Some children are naturally diligent, but most are inclined to resist at times. You can’t do it alone. Rely on God — find his wisdom in the Scriptures, especially in Proverbs, and pray for discernment and love. Pray for his guidance as you plan with your spouse. Decide what work is reasonable to expect from each child according to his or her age and ability. Set an example of diligence yourselves. Have the expectation firmly planted in your mind, “Our children will work,” and let your attitude and words convey this.

“Have the expectation firmly planted in your mind, ‘Our children will work.’”

Also have a plan in place to deal with resistance when it happens. Implement natural consequences, such as, “If you don’t put your dirty clothes in the hamper, they won’t get washed.” Then carry through with the warning. Stay calm, firm, and positive. Discipline your children when they are young so that they learn self-discipline as they grow up. Persevere; you are in this for the long haul. Remember, hard-working children, like Rome, are not built in a day.

What

Finally, what are some practical ways to instill a biblical work ethic in our children? The word together comes to mind. We are a family; we live, eat, work, play, and worship together. We serve each other. Working together is great “together time.” We have our little ones alongside us when we do dishes, take care of the yard, and clean the house. We teach them as we go.

At first it takes more time, because they are learning. Don’t expect perfection, but do expect effort and gradual improvement. If and when our children show the smallest shadow of defiance or disobedience, deal with it immediately. This is foundational for teaching children to work. And it’s foundational for life itself.

“We are a family; we live, eat, work, play, and worship together. Working together is great ‘together time.’”

Before long, the kids are contributing to the well-being of the family. When they are little, praise them and celebrate success, so they develop a positive attitude to work. As they grow older, continue to show age-appropriate affirmation and appreciation.

In Due Season

From my years of teaching and mothering, there are a handful of lessons and principles I would want to make sure our children learn. Many of these may take years to instill in them!

Teach them values as you teach them to work, such as honesty, purity, and humility (to name a few).
They need to take responsibility for their space and their stuff; tidiness and organization make life a lot less stressful.
Nurture perseverance so that they can approach a task involving multiple steps confidently, not getting overwhelmed.
Provide them with boring and repetitive tasks, because that’s just part of life.
Set goals. Picture the end product — a clean room, a repaired toaster, or a delicious meal.
Give them a variety of experiences in different subjects — mechanics, science, gardening, art — so they can learn life skills and find their talents. Teach them to love learning.
Instill confidence to overcome obstacles. Teach them that failure can be used for good when they learn from their mistakes. Encourage them by saying, “You can do this!” Celebrate successes.
Nurture excitement to start a new project or build something. Then make sure they finish.
Pay them for some of their work (except for the work expected of family). Then teach them how to tithe, save, and spend their money, so they understand, “No effort equals no pay. Extra effort equals extra pay.”
Provide the joy of service — of giving to others with no expectation of a reward, of helping someone in need.

As a final reminder, the work of salvation is one type of work that neither parents nor children can do. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died for sinners like us, so that we can be saved. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work faith and repentance in all of our lives, either for the first time or afresh. Then we can truly enjoy our work. We will see it as the gift of God. We get great joy from glorifying him. And in due season, we and our children can enjoy the fruit of our labors and rest with peace in our hearts.

“So, you’re a trauma surgeon! Tell me, what was your best case?”

Suddenly, the studio lights glared uncomfortably bright. Undoubtedly, the interviewer wanted me to offer him a flashy, adrenaline-fueled scene worthy of TV docudramas, a story stuffed to the brim with clickbait. But for those of us who toil in the wages of sin over the long years, rarely do these heart-pumping rescues linger at the forefront of our minds.

Rather, my first thoughts were the horrors: The young man who shouted, “Help me!” before he fell unconscious and died in the CT scanner. The woman, broken with grief, who crawled into her dying daughter’s ICU bed to hold her one last time. The paraplegic father whose anguish over the sudden death of his son so wrecked him that he howled and pitched forward out of his wheelchair onto the floor.

When I offered the interviewer the truth, his enthusiasm fizzled before my eyes, and he changed the subject. I forced a smile, swallowed down the tightness in my throat, and struggled against the tide of grief that’s become as familiar and worn as a tattered coat. It’s a mantle common to many who walk beside the hurting — the heaviness that presses upon the heart when we’ve witnessed others’ suffering over and over and over.

Burden of Caregiving

In whatever avenue they serve — in chaplaincy, military service, health care, counseling, or simply loving friendship — Christian caregivers often share a similar heart, viewing mercy as fundamental to following Jesus. What more poignant way to fulfill the call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God than to come alongside others during their darkest hours (Micah 6:8)? How better to love a neighbor as ourselves than to dedicate the work of our hands to uplifting the downtrodden and afflicted (Matthew 22:39)?

Yet when we “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), our tears can linger long after our work at the bedside or on the battlefield has finished. When we bear another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) in the hospital, overseas, or in a dying loved one’s home, our shoulders can ache long after our service has ended. Suffering leaves a mark, and in ministry that uniquely seeks to love the hurting, we bear those marks repeatedly.

In fact, when we have a front-row seat to the wages of sin, we can start to question God’s goodness and sovereignty. Is he really in control when so many suffer? Does he really love us? How do we carry on when the suffering we witness steals all hope and breath? How do we lavish others with the healing word of Christ when our own wounds still sting?

Four Truths to Guard Your Heart

When ministering to the hurting, harboring God’s word in your heart is essential. The following four reminders from Scripture can equip caregivers to face repeated suffering with grace and perseverance so they might continue to show the love of Christ when their own hearts ache with weariness.

1. You are not alone.

Just as my interviewer couldn’t comprehend the tragedies I’d seen, so also few fully understand the suffering caregivers witness in their day-to-day ministry. In Moral Warriors, Moral Wounds, retired Navy chaplain Wollom Jensen reflects upon this phenomenon: “I know what it is to live with fear; to be appalled by the loss of human life; to be shamed by the experience of participating in war; and the feeling of having lost one’s youth in ways that those who have not been to war will never be able to understand” (2).

And yet, as isolated as we may feel in our experiences of suffering, the truth is that in Christ we are never alone. Jesus was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He bore our afflictions and carried our sufferings (Isaiah 53:3–4). As the author of Hebrews writes, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

“Revel in the joy, the hope, the assurance we have in Christ that, when he returns, death shall be no more.”

God’s one and only Son — the Word who was with the Father when he stirred the heavens into existence — took on flesh, dwelt among us, and endured the same agonies and wounds that so trouble us. Most magnificent of all, Christ bore such suffering for us (Isaiah 53:4–5). He bore our burdens, knows our tears, and has journeyed through the shadowy valley. Astonishingly, he walks with us even now. “Behold,” he has promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

2. God works through suffering.

The Bible overflows with examples of God working through our trials to bring about what is beautiful, good, and right (Romans 8:28). Remember Joseph, who endured assault, enslavement, and exile at the hands of his treacherous brothers, but who saw God at work in it all. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20).

Consider John 11, when Jesus delayed in going to the bedside of his dying friend Lazarus. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Martha lamented (John 11:21). And yet, his delay served a stunning purpose: to draw dozens of the lost to himself (John 11:42, 45).

Most of all, consider the cross. God worked through his Son’s agony and death to accomplish the greatest feat in all of history — the redemption of fallen sinners and the restoration of God’s people to himself as his adopted children (John 3:16; 1 John 3:1).

If God could work good through sorrows as deep as these, then surely he can do the same in our own sorrows — however piercing, however confusing, however long-lasting.

3. God invites you into his rest.

When working in the fields of heartbreak, the grave responsibility of caregiving can overwhelm us. In such moments, opening our hands to Jesus brings relief. Remember, we are not saviors. We are laborers in the harvest, but salvation comes through Christ alone, and any good we effect is through his will, not our own (Ephesians 2:10).

God is the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, worthy of all praise; we, on the other hand, are fallen, finite, and weak. We are not enough. When we acknowledge our frailty and confess our failings before God, his grace increases all the more: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Turn over your grief to the Lord. Come to him earnestly in heartfelt prayer. “[Cast] all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Remember Jesus’s invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

4. Death is swallowed up in victory.

A dear friend and sister in Christ, for whom I served as caregiver for five years, recently fell asleep in Jesus. As I held her hand, felt her pulse become thready, and watched her breathing slow as her earthly life waned, a thought recurred in my mind: this is precisely why Jesus came. To liberate us from these shackles. To save us, in stunning grace, from the wages of our sins (Romans 6:23).

The gospel shatters death’s hold on us. Jesus has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54). He endured the cross so we might endure our own death. He rose from the tomb so that we, too, will rise. Death shall be no more. In this fallen, broken world, trials will afflict us, but Christ has overcome (John 16:33).

When Death Is Done

“So we do not lose heart,” Paul writes, reflecting upon the gospel.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

My brothers and sisters, when you sit beside the dying and come alongside the grieving, when you seek to share the gospel in dark places, allow the light of Christ to embolden and guide you. The things that are seen and transient wither before the blinding Light of the world. Let that light illuminate your mind. Let his word guide your path. Revel in the joy, the hope, the assurance we have in Christ that, when he returns, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,” for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).