There Is A Tendency - Even Among Christians - To Blame God For Tragedies Like That Of Oklahoma...

but There Is A Tendency - Even Among Christians -To Blame God For Tragedies Like That Of Oklahoma…

Years ago, while attending schooling down in Ohio, I saw a news story out of Florida… where a nine-year-old child was brutally raped and killed by a pedophile. I openly wept, not because I wanted to, especially, since the tears came in the presence of my other roommates, but because the story moved me that much because this little girl had gone to a Friday night prayer meeting and came back home and suffered the cruelest of fates… of being raped and killed by suffocation. At that time, I had recently become a Traditional Christian and secretly I was mad at the Lord for allowing such a tragedy to befall an innocent nine-year-old girl… a girl, who, before her death, had gone to a prayer meeting in honor of the Lord. And those who are reading this blog and are Traditional Christians will know and understand when I say that the Holy Spirit chastised me by saying to me that the little girl was enjoying the utmost of happiness and that she did not even remember the cruelty that took her life. I conveyed this story to those of my brothers and sisters down in Oklahoma… who suffered deaths and destruction due to the recent tornado.

In the aftermath of such tragedies, those who are not Christians find it hard - and some Christians too - like many of my roommates years ago down in Ohio, to understand why we would still have such agape love and allegiance to God/Jesus, in light of tragedies like that of the Oklahoma tornado. But we understand that many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:19). You may say that how come there is deliverance in death for the ten children, among them, two babies or the adults who died in the Lord in Oklahoma… but like that little girl down in Florida that I discussed above… who died tragically, they too are happy and no disrespect to their parents or surviving loved ones… but those children or the adults who died in Christ Jesus do not want to return to this world. Yes, it is true, that we are going to weep and moan for those we lost and even when the scripture chastises us by admonishing us not to weep for the dead… but do so only for the living… (Jeremiah 22:10)but it is difficult not to weep in times of troubles.

I take spiritual comfort, even though sometimes my flesh that is always warring with the Spirit in Christ Jesus, trembles… but I am mindful that Uriah, Stephen, the Apostle Paul, Peter among the rest of the Disciples (save for John the Revelator), and countless others then and in our modern world and others to come have suffered and will suffer tragedies. I say this knowing that God is still the only Sovereign and in charge of every aspect of life here on earth and beyond and though I may not understand it all in this corruptible, mortal coil… that I will one day be able to do so bye and bye.

And for my brothers and sisters that are hurting, remember that King Solomon wrote that there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) and that tragedies like what we have witnessed in Oklahoma and elsewhere happened to righteous men and women too – remember when the Lord had a wager with the Devil on whether Job would abandon the Lord in times of trouble; and the Lord told Satan that he can do anything to his trusted servant, Job, but that he could not kill him... and, as a consequence, Satan sent a whirlwind akin to a tornado and destroyed the house where Job’s ten children were residing, killing them all (Job 1:19). I am Christ certain that Job's children preceded him to the manifold, untold blessings of God's Heaven.

In the Gospels, we are also given comfort from the Lord when tragedies leading to deaths happen to us… because, as great as the hedge that protected Job in the Old Testament was, we have now the Blood of Christ Jesus that is better than Job’s hedge. And again, my message to my hurting brothers and sisters down in Oklahoma, who have lost loved ones, please remember what the Lord gave to the Apostle Paul for us when he wrote: O death where is thy sting… O grave where is thy victory (1 Corinthians 15:55)!