One day while I was meditating on the message of Psalm 1 that those who follow God’s instructions will be blessed in ways that those who don’t miss out on, I started thinking about my own life and the lives of those I knew. I’d seen couples who made forgiving an essential part of marriage grow closer, while those who held grudges divorced. Friends committed to honesty matured spiritually, while those who hid sins behind lies stagnated. Teens who chose godly friends avoided trouble, but those who hung out with the wrong crowd went astray.

One thing in particular stood out: God had delivered me from the tongue of a slanderer, even though some believed her lies. I thought of the hurts, broken relationships, and lost ministry left in her wake.

Then I thought of other women who embraced truth and kindness. Everyone wanted to be their friends, including me. I felt uplifted when I talked to them, and I knew I could trust their every word because they were so cautious to speak truth. I wanted to emulate them.

I decided to write a psalm about what God says about this, using Psalm 1 as a guide. Psalm 1 is a Torah psalm, which is a psalm that proclaims the goodness of God’s instructions (Torah means “law” or “instructions”). It’s a type of wisdom psalm, which is a psalm that explains how to become wise. Here’s what I wrote:

A Wisdom Psalm by Jean E. Jones

Torah Psalm by Jean E. Jones

A Psalm of Jean E. Jones

5 Reasons to Write a Wisdom Psalm

After writing this psalm, I realized more clearly why the psalmists wrote wisdom psalms, and in particular Torah psalms. These psalms

  1. proclaim the wisdom of God’s commands;
  2. teach others how following God’s instructions brings blessing;
  3. encourage meditation on why God’s instructions make sense;
  4. glorify God by proclaiming his goodness for making known how we should live; and
  5. are an act of worship.

When I wrote the first draft of Discovering Hope in the Psalms, I included instructions for optionally writing a wisdom psalm. The women who timed the lessons for me all wrote one, which I’m including below. One of the women, Jean Strand, printed her psalm in a lovely script and framed it. Hanging it on the wall made it something to talk about with guests. She brought it to our summer Bible study last year and everyone asked for copies! They also pleaded for instructions so they could write their own wisdom psalms; I said they’d be in the book.

But as we were finishing up the book, Harvest House (my publisher) asked me to cut ten pages so they could keep the price point down. I decided to move the instructions from the book to here. I’ll provide a link to those instructions in a moment. (Update 9/12/2023: The instructions are now in the Bonus Bundles and Super Bonus Bundles for both Discovering Hope in the Psalms and Discovering Wisdom in Proverbs.)

But first, here are the wisdom psalms my friends wrote. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

A Wisdom Psalm by Jean Strand

Torah Psalm by Jean Strand

A Psalm of Jean Strand

A Wisdom Psalm by Angie Wright

Torah Psalm by Angie Wright

A Psalm of Angie Wright

A Wisdom Psalm by Virginia Thompson

Torah Psalm by Virginia Thompson

A Psalm of Virginia Thompson

***

So which of God’s commands amazes you as to how following it brings blessing? Download and print the instructions for How to Write a Wisdom Psalm and create your own this week! You can post them here or in the Facebook group, Discovering Hope in the Psalms. Enjoy!

5 Reasons to Write a Wisdom Psalm (and How to Do It!) Click To Tweet See 4 modern-day wisdom psalms! Click To Tweet

In this series, I answer a reader who asked whether there will be sadness in heaven for parents of unsaved children. In Part 1, I listed several unsatisfying approaches to the question. Part 2 explains the first of three considerations involving this question: that blood relationships to both saved and unsaved children will change in heaven. This post examines two more considerations, both ways the judgment will affect sadness in heaven.

2) Revelation will Lessen Sadness in Heaven

Two of my girlfriends who thought they had married nearly perfect, godly men recently discovered their husbands had been involved in long-term affairs. Both women were shocked to find out that the men they were certain they knew intimately were actually living double lives: there was the “faithful Christian” life they portrayed in front of family and church friends, and then there was the worldly life they lived among others and in their thoughts.

Both men called hiding their sin from others “compartmentalizing”; the Bible calls it “walking in darkness” (John 3:20-21). The wives had loved a façade, not who that person really was.

Sometimes We Love a Facade

We cannot know with certainty what another person is like here on earth. But at the judgment, God will expose people’s hidden sins and motives (Romans 2:16; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Matthew 10:26). When we see the true nature of people who continued in evil and refused to repent, that nature may shock us, but it will also enlighten us as to why they don’t belong in the kingdom of heaven. Sometimes we will learn we loved a façade and the person we thought we loved never existed.

The “Remains” of the Unsaved will Differ

The question remains: The saved resurrect to glorified bodies, but what of the unsaved? Jesus speaks of “both soul and body” being destroyed in hell (Matthew 10:28), but the type of body isn’t clear. C. S. Lewis argues in The Problem of Pain that it will be less than the earthly body:

What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is “remains”. To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man—to be an ex-man or ”damned ghost”—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centred in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will.” (1953: 113-114)

He illuminates his meaning further in the novel, The Great Divorce. If Lewis is right, then seeing ex-humans with uncontrolled wills will do much to help us understand why they are lost (though without necessarily stopping sorrow over the loss of what might have been—more on this momentarily).

3) Joy and Sadness can Co-exist

Sadness in Heaven over Unsaved Loved Ones

Detail of martyred Bartholomew in “Last Judgement” by Michelangelo (Web Gallery of Art, public domain, Wikimedia)

Philosopher and ethicist Adam C. Pelser argues in Paradise Understood that the saved will at times feel sadness and somberness over the lost, but that will not diminish joy. He says emotions result from evaluating something as good or bad, so emotions such as sadness and somberness are valuable because they help us “perceive, know, and appreciatively understand” badness and they enable us to fully appreciate goodness. For example, contemplating the Crucifixion on Good Friday causes sadness and somberness, but also increases “a deep, appreciative understanding of the significance of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ” and therefore increases the joy of celebrating Easter (2017: 130-131).

Joy and Sadness in Scripture Together

Pelser argues:

Indeed, Scripture attests that it is possible to experience a deep and abiding joy even amidst the most severe trials and tribulations of this life (cf. James 1:2). If a joy that is “inexpressible and filled with glory” is possible in this life (1 Peter 1:8), still so full of pain and suffering, how much more will a deep and abiding joy be possible in heaven where those who are saved will live forever free from the many and varied trials and tribulations of this life? Just as Christian joy need not be diminished by sad and somber reflection on the crucifixion of Christ in this life, the stable, enduring state of perfect heavenly joy will not be diminished by moments of sadness and somberness toward negative realities, especially when one views and understands those negative realities in the light of God’s perfect goodness. (2017: 131)

If Pelser is correct, then sadness can co-exist with joy even in this life.

Joy and Sadness on Earth Together

One of our foster children at 14 ran away to connect with her birth mom and gain freedom to live with boys, forget school, and enjoy drugs. We were heartbroken, while at the same time relieved to have the violence and turmoil she brought finally gone. We knew the separation was good for our family, yet cried over her choices because we loved her dearly.

But here’s the thing. Even though her choices and pain still saddens us, we no longer shed tears. In fact, somber reflection about her co-exists with a joyous knowledge of God’s grace to us and others.

Joy and Sadness in Heaven Together

Now, between our deaths and the creation of the new heavens and earth there will be time—perhaps substantial time. The judgment of billions of people follows the general resurrection. My husband Clay in his book, Why Does God Allow Evil?, points out that it would take 133,090 years to judge for ten minutes all seven billion alive today (2017: 155). That’s a long time and doesn’t include the judgments of those who have lived before.

My point is that there will be time to consider and adjust to losses of loved ones. The tears that God wipes away may include tears over lost loved ones.

Who knows? When God wipes away the tears, we may talk to him about all the attempts we and he made to draw those loved ones in, and we will be satisfied that all that could be done was. Somber reflection will co-exist with a joyous knowledge of God’s grace to us.

And when the day of Christ reveals loved ones whom we have poured our lives into are saved, we “may be proud that [we] did not run in vain or labor in vain” (Philippians 2:16). We shall join with angels in taking great joy over them (Luke 15:10).

Sadness in heaven over unsaved loved ones? Part 3: 2 Ways the Judgment will Affect Sadness Click To Tweet Sorrow in heaven over lost loved ones? Surprising answer of @AdamCPelser! Click To Tweet
In This Series “Will there be Sorrow in Heaven over Unsaved Children?”:
For further reading:

In Will there be Sorrow in Heaven over Unsaved Children? Part 1, I began to address a reader’s question about sorrow in heaven over unsaved children and I listed three approaches to it that don’t work. In this post, we’ll look at the first of three consideration that shed light on the issue.

3 Helpful Considerations About Sorrow in Heaven

The first consideration pertains just to parents of adult unsaved children, while the next two in Part 3 address knowing any unsaved loved one is in hell.

1) Blood Relationships with Saved & Unsaved Children Will Change

That the question asked about a parents’ sadness over adult unsaved children is due, perhaps, to the fact that most people view parental love as the one that mourns loss most.  On earth, there are some complicating factors that make loss of children especially difficult. Some of these complicating factors will be replaced or disappear in the afterlife, and that may lessen sadness so that it becomes more like the loss of other loved ones.

a) The Instinctual Part of the Parent-Child Bond May Cease

When I was 11, I excitedly told schoolmates on the bus that our family dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Gayleene, had puppies. Two children wanted to see the puppies, so I brought them home. I opened the front door to the smell of damp fur and milk. I beckoned them to follow. But as I rounded the corner from the short hallway into the living room, I heard a roar and froze. Gayleene half rose, the four speckled puppies attached to the front of her chest dropping loose with a sucking sound while others further back kept feeding. Her roar—a mix of a howl and deep growl—emanated from her dappled chest, pulsed through her tautly stretched neck, and reverberated out her whiskered mouth opened in an “O” just below quivering nostrils. Her chocolate ears pressed back and her brown eyes bulged wild and wide.

I put out my hand to stop the others. “This isn’t a good idea,” I whispered, and they nodded, turned, and left. I shut the door and peeked back around the corner. Gayleene had lain back down and was busy nuzzling her little ones back into place so they could feed. I gingerly approached and sat in a chair not far from her while I pondered the sudden change in her personality. She ignored me, apparently not considering me a danger.

That day I learned that female animals have a strong instinct to protect their young. Later, I learned that both male and female humans generally have such an instinct, too. The Bible calls this instinct God-given and observes that ostriches have less of it (Job 39:14-17) while she-bears are ferociously endowed (Proverb 17:12).

The Mama-bear Instinct May Cease

Sorrow in heaven over unsaved children

Detail of Book of Life in “Last Judgement” by Michelangelo (Web Gallery of Art: Public Domain, Wikimedia)

Instincts are behaviors that are innate rather than learned. In fact, the Bible likens people who act on passions alone to animals who act on instinct rather than reason (2 Peter 2:12; Jude 1:10). Thus instincts seem to be part of our physical makeup—our “flesh and blood”—rather than our minds. Since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50), I suspect that purely physical instincts that have no use in the next life will disappear with our earthly bodies.

This may include whatever is purely instinctual about the parent-child bond; for example, the mamma-bear instinct that causes parents to rush to defend their children. In humans, this protecting instinct ensures a family’s survival on earth, but such a drive is unneeded in the coming kingdom where there is no more death. If that instinct to protect our own disappears, then it would no longer drive emotions to greater heights.

b) Corruptions of Parental Love Will Cease

Although the instinctual parts of the parent-child relationship may desist, love will not, for “Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8).  On the other hand, certain corruptions of parental love that increase grief on earth will cease. Fire will reveal and burn these away (1 Corinthians 3:12-15):

  • The pursuit of immortality through offspring that causes the loss of an only child to also be the loss of preserving one’s memory
  • The pursuit of self-worth through being needed that results in loss of purpose when children leave or die
  • The idolizing of children that may result in abandoning God if family expectations aren’t met (Matthew 10:38)

c) A Sibling Relationship Will Replace the Parent-Child Relationship

Jesus considered blood ties to have less significance than spiritual ties (Matthew 10:37; 12:49-50). This particularly makes sense when we consider that in the kingdom of heaven our family relationships actually change, especially the parent-child relationship, because God adopts those who are born again (Romans 8:23). When someone adopts a child, her parental ties to the birth parent end.

In the kingdom of heaven, everyone will be a child of God the Father, and the earthly parent-child relationship will become a heavenly sibling relationship.

Sorrow in Heaven over Unsaved Children? Part 2: 3 Ways Blood Relationships Change Click To Tweet
In This Series “Will there be Sorrow in Heaven over Una)a)saved Children?”: