KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Grief
A PRINCE WAS running for his life from revolutionaries who were out to kill him...
He ran into town and knocked on the door of a peasant and asked to hide inside his house. The man agreed and hid the prince under his bed. Soon after, the pursuers knocked at the door and began to look for the prince. Instead of moving the bed, they jabbed knives through the mattress. Not finding their victim, the attackers soon left to search another house. The prince, pale and shaken, came out from under his bed and announced to the peasant that he had just saved the king's son! In gratitude, he offered the peasant three wishes.
The peasant's first wish was to ask that repairs be made to his cottage. The prince agreed, but then chastised the peasant for asking for such a small gift. Then the peasant asked that his neighbor, who sold the same wares as he did, be forced to move to the other side of the village so that he could sell more of his own merchandise. Again, the prince agreed, but then angrily warned that the last wish should not be used so foolishly. The peasant, was a curious sort of fellow and said that he wanted to know how the prince felt when his enemies were thrusting their knives through the mattress. Outraged that the peasant would asked such a personal question, the prince ordered his loyal soldiers to seize the peasant for his insolence and ordered that he put to death on the morrow. The next morning, after spending a pitiful night in the dungeon, the peasant was taken to a scaffold where an executioner awaited. As the executioner raised his sword, a soldier suddenly rode up and ordered a halt on orders from the royal prince. He then handed the peasant a note which read, "For your third request you wanted to know how it felt as my enemies thrust their knives into your mattress above me. I have granted your wish; now you know!"
THOUGHT: When someone utters those irreverent words, "I know exactly how you feel," they are implying that a) all grief is generally the same, and b) it is easily understood. No one knows exactly the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing following a loss -- except Jesus. Grief is a language that the Lord understands.
KneEmail: "But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all me, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man" ( John 2:24-25; cf. 11:35; Isa. 53:3).