WHEN TRAGEDY HAPPENS

Garry L. Martin

       We never know when tragedy is going to strike.  When tragedy does happen we often start asking questions about life and death.  We even begin questioning ourselves — asking if there was something we could have done.   I have noticed people give wrong answers to others while they are grieving in order to help them get through their feeling of grief.  Wrong answers will not provide solace for the future.  Let us introduce our thought by consideration of this fact of truth…

      “A man knows an event that took place in the past; and yet his knowledge cannot be viewed as causing the event to happen.  God’s knowledge of the future is just like that, only covering a different period of time; and his eternal knowledge of what will happen cannot be viewed as the cause of those future events, nor as imposing any responsibility upon God for their occurrence.  That Almighty God did actually know everything that would happen from all eternity is a fact totally beyond human comprehension, but the scriptural teaching of this fact is indisputable.”   (Coffman Commentary on Ephesians)   I would like to share the following verse with this thought –

      “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”  (Galatians 6:10)

      God is a loving God and the tragedies in our lives often produce such a panic-stricken feeling that we do not know what to say or do while we are hurting.  One thing I do know – God says --  “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)  God will work out the best for all who love Him and are called according to His purpose. 

      Notice “ALL THINGS” work together...  What does this mean?  Again brother Coffman says, “ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD”... this includes all sufferings, sorrows, infirmities, and everything else of a discouraging and calamitous nature which might befall God's child on earth. "For good ..." cannot mean earthly prosperity, success, bodily health, or any other purely mortal benefit, but is rather a reference to the eternal well being of the soul. Whatever might happen to the Christian in this life, absolutely nothing can happen to HIM or HER, that is, his saved inner self. This is true because God is able to overrule every earthly circumstance in such a manner as to compel its contribution to the eternal redemption that awaits the children of God. As Brunner warned, No universal optimism is meant - (such as) everything will turn out all right for everybody in any case. There stands here the significant limitation, to them that love God.”  (Coffman Commentary on Ephesians)

      Let me end with this poem … the author is unknown –

Birth is a beginning and death a destination
And life is a journey: from childhood to maturity

and youth to age;
From innocence to awareness and ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to desecration and then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength or from strength to weakness
and often back again;
From health to sickness and we pray to health again.
From offense to forgiveness from loneliness to love
from joy to gratitude from pain to compassion