Tragedy and Loss: Don't Over Spiritualize It
Tragedy and Loss
…don’t over spiritualize it.
This is the third post looking at tragedy and loss. Read part two here, looking at our need to blame someone for tragedy.
Looking to blame someone is one mistake we make in the face of tragedy and loss. Another mistake we make is to over spiritualize what happened. That is, we assign a spiritual meaning to help make sense of everything. It's only natural. When we feel out of control, we are desperate to regain our control over our lives. So we try to tie up the loose ends and connect the dots to make us feel better, even if our thoughts make no sense.
How We Over Spiritualize Tragedy and Loss
There are many ways that people over spiritualize a tragedy. Let me name a few and I hope you will send me other ways you’ve heard it done. For example, when someone dies, people say things like…
God must have needed another angel in heaven.
No, he didn’t. God’s got enough angels, and besides, we don’t turn into angels when we die. That’s just a religious form of denial, trying to separate us from the pain. I understand why we do it, it’s just not helpful. Or, people say…
Well, you know, everything happens for a reason…
The implication is that there was some divine plan behind the tragedy. No, that’s not true either. Sometimes there’s no reason. Some things are purely accidental. That’s what makes them a tragedy...the randomness of it all.
Now, God can make good out of bad situations, but he doesn’t cause bad things to happen to make good out of them. Other people try to find a spiritual benefit to make sense of the tragedy. Like someone might say…
Maybe God caused this bad thing to happen so people would turn to God.
For example, like 9/11, when the World Trade Towers were taken down. When that happened, the churches all filled up. I heard some people say that God caused the tragedy to cause a spiritual revival. I don’t buy that. There are better ways to get people to turn to God than for God to manufacture a disaster. The apostle Paul said in Romans that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.
Now, if people turn to God because of a tragedy, that’s great. I hope they do. That’s always my prayer. That’s another example of God making good out of something bad. He does it all the time. But I never think that God caused a tragedy for that result.
How to Respond To Tragedy and Loss
My caution here is to not twist the truth by casting blame or to over spiritualize a tragedy when it strikes. Instead, I’d like to suggest that we focus on what we know and not on what we don’t know. There are three things that we know that might help us here...at least we know from a biblical perspective.
First, we know that we live in a broken world.
Actually, you don’t even need to believe in the Bible to know this. Just look around. Just read the news. The apostle Paul put it this way:
Creation looks forward in hope to be set free from its bondage to decay...Romans 8:21
Paul tells us the current status of the world...it’s in bondage to decay. In other words, the world is broken. If you read the whole chapter, he references what happened in the beginning of time. God created things perfectly but then sin entered the world and it’s like rust that affects everything. Nothing is perfect. Everything and everybody suffers from this bondage to decay. That’s why bad things happen, and we suffer pain, and disease, and relationships break down, and people die...we are in bondage to decay.
The second thing we know is that God loves us.
The apostle Paul wrote a letter to Christians who were dying at the hands of their Roman persecutors. They were asking Paul: Why is God allowing us to die? Paul didn’t have an answer for them, but he told them what he did know about God:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39
We can always count on the fact that God loves us and is with us no matter how bad things get.
The third thing we know is that this world is not the end of the line.
Paul wrote a letter to a different church who was also suffering persecution. They too wanted to know why God would let that happen to them. So Paul related all the bad things that had happened to him. He said, Look, I’m suffering too. Suffering happens to God’s people. He had been shipwrecked. He was beaten and robbed and left for dead. He hadn’t been spared from hardship. So he didn’t have an answer for why bad things happened. But this is what he did know. He said:
We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:16,17
Paul said, life is hard. It’s filled with pain, but I don’t think it will compare with the glory that God has waiting for us in the next life. Compared to the next life, our troubles are like light and momentary troubles. So hang in there. It’s worth the wait. You see, Paul had a context, a narrative, that included suffering. He was able to roll with it without reacting against it.
Don't Let Tragedy Derail You
I want to encourage you today to be careful how you think about suffering, loss, and tragedy. I don’t want it to derail you. I don’t want you to go into a tailspin and become bitter, and angry, and possibly fall away from God. And I don’t want you to live in a religious fantasy world where you over spiritual things by projecting spiritual reasons onto tragedy that just aren’t true. That’s not healthy either.
There’s a song that goes: “Through it all, through it all, my eyes are on you. So it is well with me.” This song is telling us that what gets us through a trial isn’t wondering where God was, or accusing him of abandonment, but realizing that he never left us. He’s still with us. So keep your eyes on him.
Keep your eyes on God and believe that he has your best interest in mind…and somehow, in his wisdom, God will pick up the pieces of your life and make something beautiful of it.
As I close out this three part series, I’d like to leave you with this prayer:
Father, so many of us have been derailed by tragedy. It makes me sick that it causes some people to run away from you instead of turn to you. So please help us to find a way through this paradox. Help us to believe in your protection and yet still believe that you haven’t forsaken us when tragedy strikes. Help us to find your presence and care. Amen.
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