When Tragedy Strikes

There are times when God doesn't make sense, and this is felt deeply in times of tragedy. I've known some pretty terrible things to happen to folks through the years. I'm thinking of the young married couple at church whose husband was tragically killed at work in an accident in his twenties, and she was left to raise their one-year-old son by herself.

I had another friend whose wife got Alzheimer's in her late thirties and died suddenly, leaving him to raise their two young daughters by himself. It didn't make sense. Or the young couple who had a stillborn baby, and I stood at that little casket at the funeral to comfort them.

Or the friend whose talented sixteen-year-old son was tragically killed in a car accident, and he told me at the funeral we had plans for our son, but God had other plans. The book of Habakkuk deals with the issue of trying to make sense of God in times of tragedy. The prophet Habakkuk, his very name means the wrestler, and that corresponds to his wrestling with the questions why God would allow calamity to befall his own people.

He questioned why the people of God should perish at the hands of the heathen Chaldeans. Habakkuk was deeply troubled at the injustice that prevailed in the land in his day. To the prophet, God was not making sense.

Finally, God convinces Habakkuk that, although incidents and circumstances seemed against God's people, that God is completely wise and sovereign in all his dealings. It is in this resignation of the prophet's will to the providence of God that we have his remarkable prayer that expresses his trust in God, which is recorded in chapter 3 and verses 17 through 18. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

I will stop there, friends. There are times when tragedy strikes and God just doesn't make sense. The sudden death of my wife was a terrible tragedy to me and my teenage daughter.

But God got us through. Like the prophet Habakkuk, I had learned the principle of trusting in God's wisdom and sovereignty in all things, even when I could not make heads or tails out of them. But one thing I know for sure, friends, is this truth.

When God doesn't make sense, he gives you the grace to sense him. He is all you need, and we will joy in the God of our salvation. Let us pray.