Turning Sadness into Mission Work

Today, I was sad about something.  The reason is not as important as what the Lord led me to do with the feelings that began to erupt.  You see, the more I thought about what was making me sad, the more I began feeling other things, such as worry, stress, helplessness, and failure.  So I did what I do during these times.  I began to pray and I started by repenting for feeling those feelings because those are not from God.  He is the God of hope and it was clear to me that I was not leaning on Him, enough.  After I repented, I asked Him for forgiveness and then guidance.  He led me to open the Bible, of course.  I read Matthew 24-28.  I love to read Jesus' words.

But then I back-tracked and it hit me.

In Matthew 14, John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, was beheaded for no reason.  Please read the chapter.  But the part that got me was in verses 13-14: Now when Jesus heard it, He withdrew from there in a boat in a lonely place by Himself; and when the multitudes heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities.  And when He went ashore, He saw a great multitude, and felt compassion  for them, and healed their sick.  (Bolded emphasis mine)

I bolded some parts of the verses because I wanted you to notice a few things: (1) When Jesus heard about His cousin's horrible death, He didn't stay and complain, wasting His energy and time acting angry when there was nothing He could do about it.  He left, by Himself, to a place that no one else would be.  Maybe He prayed to His Father.  Maybe He wept.  We do know that He knows the things we feel so maybe He felt all the negative things but went away to pull Himself together.  But, check this out: (2) He didn't stay away.  He came back anew.  And not only that, when He saw all the people waiting for Him, He felt a different feeling: compassion.  (3) So first, Jesus brought His sadness to the lonely place, left it there, and then came back to the land of the living and began to heal people.  He turned His sadness into mission work, if you will.  Not only did He heal their sickness but He fed them, too, in verses 15-21.  There were over 5,000 men that He fed, with only five loaves and two fish, and that was not counting the women or children.

 Wow.

Through our faith in the power of Jesus Christ, He can heal our feelings of sadness, stress, worry, failure, helplessness, hopelessness, anxiousness, etc.  But do you ever notice the needs of others when you come out of your dark place?  Maybe it's a need to minister to your family.  Maybe to your neighbors or your church family.  Is there a soup kitchen in your community? Maybe your child's teacher needs extra support.

From here on out, I will remember that treasure of a verse in Matthew 14:13-14 and work to turn my loss into gain.