Tag Archives: tragedy

10 Good Things About Tragedy

10 good things about tragedy

Every person wants to avoid hardship. There is something inside everyone who wants to walk the smooth path filled with blessings. But sooner or later, tragedy strikes us all. In the midst of these trials, it is important to remember that there is good which can be discovered. Here are ten good things each person can find when he or she is struggling with adversity (note: if you are still “raw” from a recent tragedy, it might be too soon to read through all of these).

Good Thing #1: Drives us to PASSIONATE PRAYER. King Hezekiah became ill and was told that he was going to die. He was told that he would not recover from this mortal illness. His initial response was this:

“Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord” (Isaiah 38:2).

God answered Hezekiah’s prayer and he ended up living many more years. Hezekiah looked at death in the face and he knew that the only One who had power over death was the One he needed to talk to. There is something inside a Christian that draws them to prayer when tragedy strikes. Christians who have a shallow prayer life become mighty warriors in prayer when life socks them in the stomach with a trial.

Good Thing #2: Awakens us to the SWEETNESS of SCRIPTURE. We can find comfort in reading God’s written word in the midst of the storm.

“Trouble and distress came upon me, but your commands give me delight” (Psalm 119:143).

When a Christian opens the Bible and reads it when they have just been given bad news, it is amazing how many times a particular verse speaks directly to what he or she is going through. Just the other day I was with a family who had just been given some really devastating news about someone they love dearly. That morning, the Scripture verse in their devotional applied directly to them. I do not know what I would do without the Bible when storms come into my life that Satan uses to destroy the foundations of my faith. I remain strong when I feed off of God’s promises to me. It doesn’t make it less tragic, but it does give me hope.

Good Thing #3: HUMBLES our HEARTS. Sometimes, when people don’t go through any problems for an extended period of time, they begin to believe that God is happier with them than others. Therefore, they secretly believe that they deserve to be blessed more than others. Pride then finds its way into their heart.

“In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me” (2 Corinthians 12:7).

Paul, the great missionary, the spiritual leader of the early church who saw glimpses of heaven, could have become exceedingly arrogant. But he remained humble because God allowed a “thorn” to bother him. I have a thorn in my life that keeps me humble. What is your thorn?

Reason #4: Develops in us PATIENT ENDURANCE. Are you someone who is willing to endure great trials and still remain strong? Will you be faithful to your spouse even when you have reason to throw in the towel? Will you be faithful to your company even when they don’t treat you with the kind of respect you deserve? Will you be faithful to your church after all the opportunities you might have had to leave when things didn’t always go your way?

When we go through situations that are not fair and we endure them, there is something rewarding about it. Endurance satisfies our souls because we conquered…evil.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3).

Good Thing #5: Leads us to spiritual INTROSPECTION. Tragedy motivates us to look into the deep corners of our hearts. And when we shine some light into these dark areas, we almost always find something that shouldn’t be there.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word” (Psalm 119:67).

People cry out all the time to God in the midst of a trial. They say things like, “God, I will eliminate this sin from my life if you fix things!” And they mean it, for a while. But when life gets back to normal, they allow the sin to creep back into the heart. Be that person who is transformed by your tragedy. Allow this tragedy to reshape your heart to such an extent that you grow in your hatred for evil around you and especially in your heart.

Good Thing #6: Proves that you have a GENUINE FAITH. This one is really hard to explain on paper. Peter explains it well in his first letter:

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:6-7).

When you courageously journey through a tragedy, other people notice. God notices. When a storm strikes a Christian’s home, people usually go one of two directions: towards God or away from God. Those who run away from God become bitter and disillusioned with the bad luck of life, while those who run closer to God develop a deeper love for the God who gives and takes away.

Good Thing #7: Awakens others to PRAY. Nothing can unify hundreds of believers in Jesus Christ faster than finding out about a tragedy. Every Christian knows what to do: pray! When I have had thousands of Christians praying for me (and my family) during certain tragedies, I have felt a spiritual blanket of God’s love and protection come over me like never before. I have felt this blanket only a few times in my life. I wish I could experience it more often.

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:13-14).

Good Thing #8: Allows us to EMPATHIZE WITH and COMFORT others. When someone is going through a tragedy, there is something comforting about talking with a wise Christian who has gone through some heartbreak of their own. This “battle worn” Christian doesn’t throw out clichés at you. They seem to know how to comfort you in a deeper way than those who have ran away from tragedy in their life.

“God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (1 Corinthians 1:4).

But let me caution you here: just because you have gone through a trial, it doesn’t make you an expert in how to help everyone through their own individual situation. Too many people offer too much advice because they have gone through a “mini-episode” in their life, and they now have all the answers to life’s problems. Don’t be that guy.

Good Thing #9: Heightens our desire for HEAVEN. When we have lost a loved one to death, there is a part of our soul that seems to die with them. If we have hope that we will see them someday in heaven, it makes us yearn for that day when we will reunite with loved ones who have gone before us.

“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me” (Job 19:25-27)!

When life is difficult here on earth, our minds naturally drift to the time when all will be well. In some instances, things will never be okay here on this earth again. Maybe someone we know is dying and they only have a certain amount of time left. Life will never be the same from the moment you heard the news to the time when you say goodbye to him or her at the funeral. But heaven gives us hope that life on earth is a blink (75 years) while in eternity we will keep our eyes open forever!

Good Thing #10: We can GLORIFY God with our RESPONSE. Lazarus died. His sisters wept. Jesus even wept. This is what Jesus said about the tragedy:

“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4).

Please understand that God does not directly cause bad stuff to happen in our lives. But God can take the bad stuff and turn it into something that will be used for good. This is the perspective all of us need when we go through a trial. Be encouraged that God will use the bad stuff that you are going through for His ultimate purpose. That purpose might be realized in heaven, but if you are a Christian, you must keep that perspective. Live not just for today. Live not just for tomorrow. But live knowing that your soul will live somewhere a thousand years from now.

Why Does Bad Stuff Happen to Me?

why does bad stuff happen to me

My wife Amy and I will never forget the response a younger couple had to our suffering when they entered our hospital room just moments after we found out that our baby had died. We were surprised by her visit, but not by her statement to us. The twenty-something year old woman said this: “I can’t believe that God would allow this to happen to you, you are a pastor.” She had a terrible past. She was abused as a child. She had several children out of wedlock. She had even spent some time in prison. By her logic, this should have happened to her.

The words of this young woman stuck with me for several months through this tragedy. I knew as a pastor I needed to find out what God tells us about suffering in the Bible. As I was thinking through what God had to say about suffering, my mind immediately thought about Job. So, I started to study all forty-two chapters of Job, not just the first two chapters and then the last (which is what pastors seem to only focus on).

I learned that suffering Job had three friends. When these three friends heard about his struggles, they came to him to simply sympathize with him and comfort him:

Eliphaz the Temanite

Bildad the Shuhite

Zophar the Naamathite

When they first saw Job, the scene was so bad that they tore their robes, threw dust over their heads and shouted and wept. It was so unthinkable that they sat down on the ground with him for seven days without speaking a word to him.

Each of these three men would eventually give a few speeches to Job. But before we look at what these men said to Job, we must realize that the counselors were basically wrong even though their words were often right:

God said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right” (Job 42:7-8).

Each of their speeches have a common theme.  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all had the same logic:

            #1 Sinful people experience trouble.

          #2 Innocent people are saved from trouble.

           #3 Job is experiencing trouble.

           #4 Job is sinful.

There is some truth to this, but it is not complete. You see, the three friends only asked one question. They jumped to the conclusion that Job was suffering because of unrepentant sin in his life. Even though this could have been a possibility, it is not necessarily true. And in this case with Job, it was not true. Job really had no known sin in his life at the time. These friends were too narrow in their thinking about why we suffer.

Suffering is not linked to sin unless it’s a consequence of behavior. Instead of just jumping to one conclusion when something bad happens to us, we must be willing to search deep in our hearts with three other questions.

There are three other questions Job’s friends should have been asking as they were trying to understand why bad things were happening to Job. When we are suffering, we must ask ourselves these questions:

Question #1 – Do I have unrepentant sin in my life? God might be disciplining us. He might be correcting us. We have to see if there is any sin in our life. If the answer is “yes,” then repent. It doesn’t get much simpler than what God says to the people of Israel when they are living in sin and they are experiencing drought, famine, and attacks from other nations.

God says, “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me” (Jeremiah 15:19).

What does it mean to repent? It means that you confess your sin to God and you stop your sin. But if you have searched your heart and can find no known sin, then ask another question.

Question #2 – How can I spiritually grow from this?  God allows bad things to happen to us to build character in us. If we look ahead to the end of the story, we see that Job grew from this experience. He grew in his knowledge of who God really was. By the end of this story, Job realized that his view of God was so inadequate. Job grew in understanding who God was. 

Romans 5:3-4 states that “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope.”

Hope really is all about attitude. And our attitudes will dictate how well or not we will go through a trial and how much we will learn from our troubles. Attitude determines so much in our life. Especially when something does not go right. In your current trial, what are you learning?

The most successful people in this life have learned from their tragedies and have become a better person because of it. God always wants us to grow spiritually from everything that happens to us. That is why we must spend time searching deep into our hearts to figure it out. After searching, if you have still not found out why, then ask another question.

Question #3 – How can I glorify God in this situation? Our life is not about being comfortable, but it is about bringing glory to God.  This is a hard concept for us to understand at times, because many Christians have turned their faith into what God can do for them in this life instead of what they can do for God in this life.  Psalm 46:10 states: “Be still and know that I am God; I’ll be glorified among the nations, I’ll be glorified in the earth.”

Our main goal in this life is to glorify God with our life among the nations. Too often, we focus on the first phrase of the verse to be still. We turn the verse into a devotional verse where we are quiet before God so that God can teach us something for the day. But the verse is much deeper than that. God wants us to pause and take notice that He will be gloried in this earth whether or not we listen. But when we do calm ourselves enough to think about God, we realize that our purpose on this planet is to live in a way that brings honor to our God.

When we go through trials in this life, people watch how we handle it. And when we handle it with grace and wisdom, people are impressed. They are impressed with us and they are impressed with our God.

Question #4 – Can I graciously accept this mystery? Am I willing to accept this suffering even though I do not understand why it is happening? It seems that when something tragic happens in our life, sometimes we go through a process of understanding why it happened.

Immediate: About 25% of the time, when we are going through a tough time, we know immediately why we are going through it. It becomes very clear to us (The percentage is not exact, but it simply shows us that about one out of four times we face a challenge in life, we know why. And most of the time it is because of sin in our life when it is immediate.).

Eventually: There are other times where it takes a little longer, but eventually we discover why it happened to us. This seems to happen about 50% of the time. Wallace Johnson was born in 1902 and helped start the famous Holiday Inn motels chain. This is his story:

“When I was 38 years old I worked in a sawmill. One morning the boss told me I was fired. Depressed and discouraged, I felt like the world had caved in. When I told my wife what had happened, she asked me what I was going to do. I replied, ‘I’m going to mortgage our little home and go into the building business.’ The loan was for $250. My first venture was the construction of two small buildings. Within 5 years I was a multimillionaire! At the time it happened, I didn’t understand why I was fired. Later, I saw it was God’s unerring and wondrous plan to get me into perfect will.”

Just like Wallace Johnson, can you think about a time in your life where something really difficult came into your life and you were confused for a while as to why it happened, but then eventually you discovered why it happened? After you go through these kinds of trials a few times in your life, you gain a better perspective that God is doing something good behind the scenes. As you mature as a believer, these moments can become exciting if you allow them to be.

Heaven: But there are instances where we do not find out this side of heaven and will have to wait until then to truly find out why something happened to us. This might be about 25% of the time. God marks across some of our days, “Will explain later.”

When bad things happen to us and we don’t receive the answer immediately or even eventually, sometimes we might even think that God is somehow angry with us. Job truly believed that God was angry with him. He was scared to approach God because even though he couldn’t think of anything he had done wrong, he was certain that God was angry with him. He acknowledges that he is a mortal and that it is impossible for a mortal human being to be righteous before God. God could convict him of anything He wants to because God is the One who removes mountains (9:5), shakes the earth (9:6), commands the sun not to shine (9:7), and tramples the waves of the sea (9:8).

But God is not angry with you just because you experience trouble. You must be able to overcome those feelings that well up inside that God is against you when something tragic happens. Because we all will eventually experience something tragic in our lives if we live long enough.

Never: There might even be times when we will never know why something happened to us. When we get to heaven, that does not necessarily mean that we will all of a sudden know everything there is to know about everything. That is reserved for God alone. God is the only One who knows everything and that means that there might be some things that we will never know about no matter what. But I think that we will be able to accept it better when we are in heaven and we will have our new minds and can think at an entirely different level.

While we are here on this earth, God is okay with us arguing with Him. Job 13:15 states: “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.”

You have the right to argue with God and ask why awful things are happening, but always keep your faith while you are contending with Him. There are over 300 questions in the book of Job. Here is one of the questions Job asked:

“Is it right for You indeed to oppress, to reject the labor of Your hands, and to look favorably on the schemes of the wicked” (Job 10:3).

Job knew this was not true. But he sure felt like it was in the moment. We know that this question is not true. But there are times in our lives when we feel like the wicked are getting away with things they shouldn’t, while we are suffering. People ask these questions:

Why is “so and so” so wealthy and successful in his business even though he doesn’t follow the correct ethics, when I follow good ethics and yet it seems like I am constantly struggling to pay my bills?

Why does “so and so” produce baby after baby and yet she neglects her children and spends hardly any time with them, but I would love to have my own child and I would take such good care of them, but God has kept me without a baby?

Why doesn’t “so and so” who doesn’t take good care of their body get cancer? Instead, I get it and I make sure that I eat healthy and strive to keep my body in good shape?

Why does my wife have to die before all of my other friend’s wives? We had a great marriage. We loved each other. We were faithful to each other for forty years, and yet now she is gone and I am the only one of my friends who is alone.

Why can’t I find true love? Everyone around me seems to be able to but me? Why does it feel like God doesn’t have anyone for me?

In December 1987, Jami Goldman and a friend drove from Arizona to Purgatory to ski. Jami was nineteen years old and a student at Arizona State. On the way back, they took a wrong turn. The road was closed behind them, and no one checked the road to see if anyone was on it. Their car got stuck in a snowbank. It was December 23. “You didn’t know if it was day or night for the first four days because the snowstorm was so bad,” Jami said. Jami developed frostbite in her legs, then gangrene. They had no food, and had to melt snow on the dashboard for water. They finally were found January 2. Goldman’s legs had to be amputated below the knees. Goldman wasn’t athletic before she lost her legs.

“A lot of kids ask, ‘Do you want your legs back?’ I say, No, because I wouldn’t be able to sit here and share my story with you.’ Or, ‘No, I wouldn’t be in the position of a role model and a mentor, providing hope for people with disabilities.’ I feel really fortunate my life has taken this turn.”

She ran in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

How can you look at your life storm as an opportunity? What can you do to make sure that God is using you through this tough time in your life for HIS GLORY?