The Sad Bank

Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Ka ching; Ka ching; Ka ching. I found myself depositing a lot of coins in my sad bank last week. News about the death of a former classmate moved from shock to heartbroken grief. I became aware of how the passing of his life diminished something in my own.

Grief at all levels extracts from our emotional account. A son or daughter leaves home. Ka ching. A job ends. Ka ching. A relationship doesn’t survive the ebb and flow of change. Ka ching. Anyone hate to see the final pages of the last chapter of a good book? Ka ching.

Grief. Like a shroud, it separates us from the land of the living. It forces us to bid bon voyage to what was. It kills our hope. Yet it’s part of our human experience….Our fallen human experience.

God never intended for us to walk through its shadows. To be overcome with the Ka chings of sadness. He authors life, not death. Scripture says Jesus “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” when he saw the grief caused by his friend, Lazarus’ death (John 11:33). He hated the fallout of the Fall.

And we know he came to do something about it. He stared down death and in the wake of his victory assured mankind that all our griefs on earth would someday turn to joy.

So how’s your emotional bank account these days? Are you filling it with more sadness than hope? Jesus promises to dry your every tear. He assures his followers that someday the sad banks will be emptied for good. In fact, they will go into full foreclosure! That’s a pretty powerful expectation.

Take heart, friend. A day is coming with no more Ka chings of sadness. Every unfulfilled desire, every numbing disappointment, every depleting loss will be replaced with the pure, reverberating sound of gladness.