Godly Grief

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight …” (Psalm 51:4).

Worldly sorrow is self-focused.

Godly grief is God-focused. 

Worldly sorrow makes you sad that you were found out as a sinner. Godly grief makes you sad that God was sinned against.

When the goal is to keep up an image of spotlessness, sin leads to self-pity and despair. We mourn the loss of our own constructed righteousness, and we become dejected about our inability to restore it. All the while, our attention has not shifted one degree. From the time we turned away from God to the time that we spiraled into self-pity, our eyes were fixed on ourselves.

Godly grief is godward grief. It is a burning sorrow ignited by a sight of the holiness of God. 

There is no despair in godly grief. When we received Christ’s righteousness, we said our final goodbye at the funeral of our righteousness. We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live. And since our hope was never placed in us, we have no reason to despair.

Godly grief is a different kind of brokenness—one that arises, not from our broken image, but from our sense of the broken heart of God. 

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

Contrition is grief over the pain we’ve caused God rather than self-pity over the image we couldn’t keep up. 

God never rejects this kind of brokenness. All who carry a contrite heart to the foot of the cross walk away with resurrection joy. 

Godly grief starts by looking up. 

Gaze at the scarred Lamb who stands, and your heart will flood with hopeful sorrow. 

Because he is scarred, you can grieve over the sin that remains. 

Because he stands, you can hope in the day when sin will be no more.