Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
ALTON - On the most recent episode of “You’re Beautiful” with Brian Trust, Phil Davis spoke about grief and finding peace through his relationship with the Lord.
Davis explained that God has taught him how to care for other people and share the peace he feels with those who are going through difficult times. He noted that God and the Bible are powerful antidotes to confusion, fear and anxiety. This peace has helped Davis through some of the hardest challenges of his life.
“The peace that God gives you when you’re seeking Him, when you’re going towards Him, it allows you to go through the storms of life and know that you’re going to get to the other side, no matter how heavy they are,” Davis said. “It brings a lot of peace. God clearly shows Himself to me and basically just tells me to love on people. Just care for people. That’s what they need.”
Davis’s relationship with God became even more vital to him following the passing of his son. As he grieved, he relied on God, other people and the power of prayer to help him through it.
“Jesus’s whole ministry was healing the blind, healing the sick, loving on the poor and downcast. So if you can’t draw hope from the Bible, where do you draw hope from?” he explained. “It was really hard. It was really hard because he was my boy. He was my boy. You don’t know how to grieve. Grief is just the strangest thing.”
But Davis found peace in knowing that he would one day see his son again. His son was visually impaired and couldn’t drive, so Davis looks forward to “going for a drive in some sort of a convertible” with him in Heaven. He trusts that God is taking care of his son.
As Davis grieved, he took a lot of comfort in the Bible and the support of other people. He encourages anyone who is grieving to trust God and to let themselves feel whatever they need to. When he is struggling, he often returns to Jeremiah 29:11 and Proverbs 3:5–6.
“Letting yourself grieve, talking to people, trying to understand but also realizing that there’s not a lot that you need to understand, other than it is hard and people are going to have to carry you. Prayer and knowing that life can end tomorrow [will help.] Really what I got from that is we need to live and enjoy life,” he remembered. “I think God wants us to have joy, but He also wants us to be purposeful. We need to be balanced. In order to be purposeful, we also have to have joy.”
Davis believes that he has a purpose, and it’s not his time yet because he still needs to fulfill it. As part of that purpose, he encourages people to build their relationship with God and talk to Him as if they were talking to their own father.
Davis pointed out that he would do anything for his kids, and he believes God feels the same way. He hopes to help people develop that trust and love for God, as this has brought him peace throughout his own life.
“We’re so blessed,” Davis added. “The gratitude makes you want to be grateful for people and show them love. You want them to experience that peace, but we know where that comes from. So you develop that relationship. Once you develop that relationship, you can nudge them and say, ‘I love you. I want to see you in Heaven beside me one day.’ That's not just me talking, that’s real talk. That’s for real.”
You can watch or listen to “You’re Beautiful” with Brian Trust at 2 p.m. on Thursdays on RiverBender.com/Video.
More like this:
