Trusting in Tragedy
The author Philip Yancey writes of being contacted by a television producer after the death of Princess Diana to appear on a show and explain how God could have possibly allowed such a tragic accident. “Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going 90 miles an hour in a narrow tunnel?, he asked the producer. ‘How, exactly, was God involved?'”
Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match, the athlete said in a press conference, “Sometimes I wonder why God does the things He does.”
In a letter to a Christian family therapist, a young woman told of dating a man and becoming pregnant. She wanted to know why God allowed that to happen to her.
In her official confession, when South Carolina mother Susan Smith pushed her two sons into a lake to drown, she said that as she did it, she went running after the car as it sped down the ramp screaming, “Oh God! Oh God, no! Why did You let this happen!”
Then things like 911, the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, the Columbine massacre, OKC bombing happen. Then just a few blocks away from us, a couple of years ago, an 8th grade girl takes her life by hanging herself, and a woman gets raped just 12 blocks away from us.
What role did God play exactly? This I know ….
- God didn’t tell the guys to ram the trade towers
- God didn’t send that man to Sandy Hook Elementary to massacre them.
- God didn’t send those two teenage boys into Columbine high school to massacre all of those other teenagers.
- God didn’t send that bomb to blow up that building in OKC.
- God didn’t tell that 8th grade girl to kill herself.
- God didn’t tell that man to rape that woman on 38th st.
We ask the questions why did God allow these things to happen. Why didn’t He do anything to stop innocent people from dying? Where was God when all this stuff happened? Why does God allow his people to go through so much pain and suffering. Mother Theresa once quipped, “Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you don’t have many.”
What we see as unjustified pain often shakes our faith because we can’t explain its source or understand it’s purposes. Plus you have the skeptics in the background are saying, “Either God is all-powerful or He doesn’t care.”
Why does God allow us to suffer?
Does God allow us to suffer to punish us for our sins? Sometimes that can be the case. Moses wasn’t permitted to enter the Promised land because he lost his temper. Miriam was temporarily struck with leprosy because she under-minded Moses’ leadership. Herod was eaten with worms and died because he assumed glory that belonged to God. So yeah ….. occasionally we experience God’s painful rod of correction. Hebrews 12 teaches us that God disciplines us as a father disciplines his children.
Does God allow to suffer because of our own stupid mistakes? Yes. We smoked for years and now suffer with cancer. We were promiscuous and contracted venereal disease. We neglected to study and we failed. The Bible says, “you may be sure that your sin will find you out.”
Does God allow us to suffer because of a satanic attack? It does happen … but it is rare. Satan attacked Job and he lost everything. The Apostle Paul had a thorn in his side.
Does God allow us to suffer because we live in the wake of other people’s sins? Yes. A drunk driver slams into our car; our parents get a divorce; our kids rebel. The scriptures teach us the sins of the father are visited on the 3rd and 4th generation. A little baby is born with an addiction to drugs because the mother was on cocaine. That’s not the baby’s fault or is it God’s fault. It’s just that we reap the consequences of the sins of others.
Does God allow us to suffer because of persecution? Ask Saeed Abidinni(look at 2 Timothy 3:12).
Sometimes suffering is just the result of living in a fallen world.
Even if we can identify the source of suffering, it still doesn’t answer the question why God permits it.
Then there are times when God does intervene and spares people’s suffering.
There is the story of the youth group who was coming home from a youth event when a devastating tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo. On May 22nd, 2011. Torrential rain and hail storm blocked their vision and suddenly a large tree came crashing down right in front of them. They stopped just inches from the large tree. They got out, ran to the nearest house and a stranger let them into their basement. They learned later that if they would have traveled another 100 yards beyond the fallen tree they would have been directly in the path of half-mile wide, F5 tornado that killed 161 people.
There’s also my story of a drunk driver coming straight towards me on a two lane county road. The man was going excessively over the speed limit. I can still remember thinking, “I have nowhere to go”, “this is the end of my life.” “I hope my wife and kids know how much I love them.” At literally the last-minute, he swerved to the left. I watched in my rear view mirror the car go air born and flip over 3 three before crashing through a fence. I remember thinking afterwards, “did God just spare my life?”
What role did God play exactly? God plays whatever role He likes.
Ecclesiastes 9:1,2 reminds us, “even though the actions of the godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will s how them favor. 2 The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t.
Tragedy and suffering finds us all!
And the sad truth is God doesn’t always choose to intervene.
Why my life and the life of the youth were spared and other’s died? Well …. There is no easy answer. It would be self-righteous of me to even try to answer such a question. There are people who are more smarter than me who can’t answer such the question.
There is a simple analogy that may give some insight. Why does a father take the training wheels off his child’s bicycle? The father knows his action will produce some suffering. An accident is inevitable. There will probably be some painful scrapes, some blood, and more than likely a lot of tears. But the father removes the training wheels and anxiously watches from the distance because he loves the child and knows the risk, adventure, and freedom are the sources of the most fulfilling life.
If the father is overly protective, the child would never experience the thrill of the wind in his face, riding training –wheel free down the sidewalk. In fact, if the fathers’ main objective was protection, his child would never be permitted to play sports, drive a car, date the opposite sex, get married, or have a child.
Isn’t that right parents? If your goal is to protect your kids all their life and bail them out when they get in tough situations, you and I both know they will never grow up. In my 17 years of youth ministry, I learned the kids who were forced to face life’s difficult circumstances at an early age were far more mature than the kids who had it easy.
The same is true spiritually. The risk of pain and failure contribute significantly to our maturity and fulfillment.
God did not design us to be puppets on a string. We are free human beings created in the image of God and we are given the privilege of living in a fallen world. As free human beings we are going to fall, face temptation, experience tragedy, and experience pain. Along the way we might be fortunate enough to find God’s favor. Ask anyone who has lived 60-70 plus years.
Pain, suffering, and tragedies force you to grow up. God doesn’t prevent pain, suffering and tragedies nor does he cause them. God doesn’t stop disease from coming into the world nor does he it. God doesn’t stop the terrorists of the world from doing their evil acts nor does tell them to stop.
God does use them. These kinds of things force us to mature and burst our self-centered worlds.
Everything we walk through in life. Everything we experience in life is meant for someone else. Look at the scriptures. Look at Jesus. He didn’t suffer and die for himself. He suffered and died for you and I. When you read the scriptures you are reading about what they went through and how they handle their trials and tribulations. They went through all that for you and I. That pattern continues. The tragedies that you go through. The pain you walk through. The suffering you experience isn’t for you. You are going through it for someone else.
If he doesn’t prevent pain and suffering and tragedy – what exactly is God doing? What exactly is God’s role?
Hebrews 13:5 tells us, “I will never fail you or abandon you.”
His role: Being with you. Just like he was with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the disciples and the countless billions who have gone before us. The good news for those who follow Christ that no matter what suffering looms in your future, the One who has all the power and authority over the universe will not let you walk through the darkness alone. King David wrote in Psalm 23, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow, I will fear no evil. Why? Because he is with me.”
What else is God doing?
James 1:2-4 tells us, “ when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
God doesn’t exempt us from pain, tragedy, and suffering. His goal for our lives is not our safety but our maturity. When troubles come – it is an opportunity for great joy. Most people look at pain, tragedy and suffering as something terrible. God tells us to trust that the pain is causing you to grow up. God tells us to trust the tragedy we are walking through to cause us to grow up. God tells to trust the suffering that you are walking through because it is going to cause you to grow up.
So what exactly is God’s role? To perfect and complete you until you desire nothing and need nothing but Him. Only he can meet your deepest need. Every trial, every tragedy, every suffering, and every test you walk through is an opportunity for you to grow up. These things in your life help him become greater and you become less. (John 3:30)
So what if He never does anything for me. He doesn’t take away my disease. He doesn’t heal me. He doesn’t find favor on me to make everything alright? Revelation 21:4 says, “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Heaven is a divine promise from God. God is going to give us new, glorified bodies. We’ll be free from pain; there will be no more tears, no more diseases.
When you are walking through tragedy, enduring pain, or you are searching for answers to your why questions. Remember these two words:
Time – God makes all things beautiful in his time. With God a 1000 years is as a day and a day is a 1000 years. But he promises one day the sufferings of this present world will seem but a moment in the light eternity. Be willing to wait on the Lord.
Trust – John 14:2 teaches us, “to not let your heart be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me,
Trust in tragedy
Trust in suffering
Trust in pain.
Sometimes we can’t understand or can’t see any victory or reason for the pain and suffering we are experiencing. If you knew exactly the source and purpose of suffering and you could see the end result. It wouldn’t take much faith to get through it.
Trust Him.
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