Keep Believing After the Death of a Loved One

For several days, maybe a week, you’re at the top of everyone’s calendar. You’re overwhelmed with attention. Soccer games are missed. Jobs are put on hold. Vacations are shortened. Everyone wants to be by your side.

Surrounded by friends and family, you tread through difficult decisions and memorial services. You find strength and comfort even as you answer a flood of questions from how do you feel to what happened to how can I help. There’s food, drinks, prayers, tears, and laughter. Then everyone is gone.

Life just … goes on.

You’re left facing a new path where all seems lost. There is hope, but a battle is looming ahead. Meanwhile, your energy is drained; your enthusiasm has disappeared. Here are six scriptures that brought me through the dark days after loss.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Psalm 23:4)

As I grew up, Psalm 23 was being firmly planted into my head and heart. We memorized it in Sunday School. We studied it, read it, listened to it, even sang it. I can’t recall a funeral without Psalm 23. There was comfort in hearing the Lord is my Shepherd, even though valley, shadow, and death never really made sense to me.

But when my wife died, and I walked into that valley, surrounded by dark shadows of despair, dread, and decay, I felt the icy fingers of evil grasping and clawing for my soul. God didn’t lift me out. He joined me on the trail. As death cast its shadows across my life, God’s presence was Light that overcame the darkness.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus, has been dead for four days. When movies depict this scene, directors often create a melodramatic moment by using an ominous voice-over proclaiming “I am the resurrection and the life” as Jesus approaches an open tomb. But the real drama came next. Saying you are resurrection and life is one thing, proving it by calling a dead person back to life makes a convincing declaration.

Jesus asks Lazarus’ sister Martha a question. Don’t miss it. Don’t overlook the last four words in the verse: “Do you believe this?”

You can read it. You can think it. You can even know it. But do you believe it?

King David answered [his servants], “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:22-23)

David wrote half of the Psalms, killed Goliath, led Israel as king, and was a man seeking after God’s own heart. And here he is declaring that he believes Jesus. He believes in his heart that God is the God of eternity. He knows his son is now with God. And he knows he will join him one day.

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-28)

In his own flesh, in his own body, with his own eyes, he himself will see God. Job will see his Redeemer—Jesus—standing on the earth.

And so will I, along with my dad, my mom, my wife, other loved ones, you, and your loved ones. If we believe in Him, we will see Jesus with our own eyes, in our own bodies, in our own flesh. I’m overwhelmed. My heart yearns within me. How I long for that day.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants. (Psalm 116:15)

You get excited when someone you haven’t seen in a long time is coming to visit. You can’t wait. Anticipation mounts as their arrival nears. Then you see them in the distance and you run to meet them, throw your arms around their neck, and hug them tight. Tears and laughter fill the air.

I believe God feels the same eagerness and excitement. He created us. He loves us. He longs to be with us. He wants to welcome us home.

The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica, sums it all up for us. I like how the NLT expresses it:

And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

Are you walking through the valley of the shadow of death? Are you struggling with pain and emptiness? Do you sometimes find yourself gazing out the window, watching the trees sway in the wind, looking up at the blue sky, longing and hoping?

Take heart. Together with them, we will meet Jesus in the air. He is the resurrection and the life.

Do you believe this?

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