The Bradleys received the grim news with shock. At
first they found it hard to believe that their 32-year old son had been
tragically killed in a ghastly car accident. It seemed more surreal than real.
Little wonder, when a caller who had introduced himself as Sergeant Fisher
first told Mrs. Bradley about the incident, she assumed he’d got the wrong
person or was at worst only playing some malicious hoax. But the woman was alarmed when the policeman
kept on phoning back. His voice was freighted with seriousness. Then she
quickly grabbed her car keys and raced her way to the prestigious Murphy
Elliottes University Teaching Hospital.
At the hospital mortuary, Mrs. Bradley met a scene
of stark horror. She found Jill’s lifeless body lying on a stretcher,
completely covered in blood.
The sight was so sickening that she fainted. It
took medics several hours to resuscitate her.
Now back at home, and with her grief still unabated,
Mrs. Bradley held Jill’s picture. She recalled vividly their last phone
conversation the previous night. The deceased had called to announce that he’d
be returning home the next day after fifteen months of peacekeeping mission in
Afghanistan. She was elated and planned to throw him a party. He was so full of
life anyone could have thought he’d live a hundred years. She remembered having prayed to
God to grant him a safe journey. Then the next thing she heard about him was
sad news. She couldn’t understand why God would allow death to snuff life out
of their son.
At this point, Mrs. Bradley couldn’t suppress her
anger at God. In a fit of rage she shrilled: ‘God why us?’ ‘How come you
couldn’t save our son despite our commitments to your cause?’ ‘Is this how you
reward your children?’ ‘God this is unfair.’ ‘Why?’ her cries reverberated
across the sleepy street.
When death snatches someone so dear to us, we’re
overcome with grief. It’s like our world has crumbled completely. This is
natural. To not mourn the sad demise of someone we love would suggest that the
person didn’t mean anything to us. On one occasion Jesus wept because of his
friend Lazarus (John 11:35).
However, some grief-stricken Christians do something
weird in the course of their mourning. They
question God why He didn’t avert the painful death of a loved one. Like the Mrs.
Bradley in our illustration, they query God why He failed to prevent a tragic
event in their lives despite their good work. This is wrong; those who display
such a bad attitude are ignorant of two eternal truths. Let me explain.
A Reality of Life
Tragedy is intrinsic to life, and everyone will have a
measure of it. Whether one is a Christian or not is pointless in this regard.
Job 5:6-7 states:
‘Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust,
neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly
upward.’
When we become God’s children, He doesn’t promise
us an earthly life devoid of pain and sorrow; it would be sheer ignorance to
believe otherwise. For believers, as for any other people, life’s not a bed of
roses but a mixture of good and evil, ups and downs, certainties and
uncertainties. We’ve not been promised a smooth voyage but a safe landing; God
doesn’t say we’ll not pass through a fiery furnace or sail through deep and
turbulent waters―He only promises to be with us during those dark chapters of
our lives.
‘When you go through deep waters and great trouble,
I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not
drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned
up―the flames will not consume you.’
―Isaiah 43:2, The Living Bible.
Think of it. If Christians are exempt from the travails
of this life then our lives would have been bereft of troubles like they have it in a never-never land. The Bible wouldn’t
have contained a promise of paradise earth in the future. If Christians are
free from tragedy, Rev. S. B. J. Oshoffa wouldn’t have died after a car crash;
Pastor Bimbo Odukoya wouldn’t have been killed in a plane crash; Mrs Abiodun Kumuyi
would be alive to this very moment; one minister of God wouldn’t have passed
away in the prime of life; his wife wouldn’t have died of breast cancer few
years after.
Believers who know this truth don’t angrily lash out
at God when pummelled by the Grim Reaper. Instead, they look up to Him for hope
and comfort. Like Job, they react to sad news by declaring the words of chapter
1 verse 21 of the book that bears that man’s name
Tragedy Not Always Evil
Unbeknown to many Christians, tragedy isn’t always hundred
per cent evil. The problem is they only focus on the evil side of it. I believe
there’s at least a trace of good in evil. Sometimes God in His infinite mercy
allows calamitous events in our lives for a purpose. He may not reveal that
purpose to us, but whatever the reason it’s for our benefit. His plan is to
ultimately bring us to an ‘expected end’
(Jeremiah 29:11).
For example, God may allow a pastor to lose his
daughter to a disease as a divine retribution, to test him as He did to Job, to
enable him learn to trust Him the more, to strengthen him in his Christian
walk, or even to prevent the departed soul from backsliding.
A friend of mine lost his brother after a protracted
illness. When he called to inform me, he was traumatised. I texted him to comfort
him. I told him that sometimes God uses death to help us. I asked what if his
brother were to be alive but in great pain? What if they had to pray to God to
call him home? What I told him wasn’t an attempt to give him a false sense of
comfort but the truth. We don’t want to
see our loved ones suffer indescribable pain or become insane before they pass
on, yet when God suddenly takes them away in order to avoid such situations,
we’re mad at Him. How ironic!
May God give you strength to remain sinless during
your troubled hours.
Further Reading: Job 2:10; 14:1; Isaiah 48:10;
John 16:33
"There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be
utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how
painful an experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster."
―Dalai Lama XIV
