After Tragedy Strikes…

All of us go through times of tragedy. Hard. Shocking. Life-changing. Miserable. Devastating. Tragedy strikes all of us. The question is what about After tragedy strikes?

What about after tragedy? When tragedy hits, how do you handle it? What do you do?

In Part One, we considered the context of tragedy. In that article, we helped set up the tragedy of first century Christians who initially lived in Jerusalem. These Christians, under persecution, waited frustratingly upon the return of Jesus Christ. The angel had promised. Everything seemed to have been going so well until Peter and John had been imprisoned twice and Stephen martyred. After this, all the Christians began running for their lives. They wander about in very small groups. They have very little money or food. Rich people are abusing them in various ways as they try to make enough money to live.

Although it is beyond the scope of this two-part article to give you every way you should respond to tragedy, please allow me now in Part Two to help you get in the right position to handle it. Maintaining your spiritual stability in the midst of tragedy and after tragedy strikes is critical for your overall response to it.

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The Dilemma After Tragedy Strikes

As we explained, the first Christians, to whom Pastor James writes who are scattered across the near ancient Middle East, needed help responding to their personal tragedy. With life upended, these followers of Christ were not responding well to their tragedy. Some were angry at the rich people who oppressed them. Others were confused, discontent, and suffering under the relentless burden of disappointment in their circumstances. Some were angry at God and accusing Him for tempting them to sin, or worse yet, causing them to sin. In many ways, they were hopeless.

These first century Christians were much like today’s Christians whenever we work our way through a tragedy. They each suffered on their own pathway consisting of a variety of intermixed responses. Confusion. Disappointment. Discontentment. Disillusionment. Anger. Blame shifting. Hopeless.

How does their loving pastor help them respond? What position does he put them in in order to respond well? How does he help them to overcome their tragedy rather than be overcome by it? How does he position them for victory in the midst of and after tragedy?

The Strongest Position to Handle Tragedy

Pastor James explains the purpose of suffering, how to identify our own sin in the midst of it, and the strongest position to handle it. In an abbreviated way, let me summarize the first two issues and explain in some detail the strongest position to handle tragedy.

Regarding the purpose of suffering, James explains that God never allows suffering providentially in our lives without purpose in it. Although there may be many things God accomplishes through our suffering, we can know for sure that He intends through our suffering for us to grow in our spiritual maturity. The pressure of suffering functions to develop us toward Christlikeness (cf., James 1:2-5, 17-18). As followers of Jesus undergo various pressured-filled situations, God uses the totality of that process to help us become complete or mature as disciples of Jesus. As we go through the pressure, one of the purposes of the suffering is spiritual growth.

Knowing that we often do not respond perfectly in the midst of suffering, Pastor James provides an explanation for our sinning while we undergo various pressures. He explains that we respond sinfully to our pressure whenever something we desire in the midst of the pressure controls our hearts in the suffering more than honoring God through the suffering. In other words, we sin because something we want possesses functional control over our inner man as we bear the weight of our suffering (cf., James 1:13-18).

With these things in mind, Pastor James then addresses our strongest position to handle our personal trials and tragedies well. He highlights four strategies or steps to maintain the strongest position to respond well in and through suffering.

 

Your Anger Only Produces More Suffering

Pastor James initially addresses our whole-person response of judgment to our pressure or tragedy – our anger. After highlighting the purpose for the pressure and the genesis of our sin in the midst of it, he explains the complications our anger creates. Essentially, our anger only produces more suffering and works against one of God’s primary purposes in our suffering.

James writes:

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1: 19-20).

He encourages us in the midst of or after our suffering/tragedy to choose a different response than anger. Why? Because a person’s anger does not produce the spiritual maturity God desires as a result of undergoing this particular pressure. Since one of the major purposes in our suffering is spiritual maturity, James emphasizes that our anger circumvents this purpose. Our anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

Instead of anger, Pastor James instructs us to be quick to hear from God, slow to speak against God, and slow to anger against God in the midst of or after the suffering. Since God’s intention is to help us become an example of Christlikeness (cf., James 1:18), our anger impedes that purpose.

The first strategy or step is to choose not to be angry at God. (As a side note, getting angry at another person or business only complicates it in a similar way as well.)

 

Your Sin Keeps You from Hearing God

Pastor James explains the second strategy or step. Your sin will hinder you hearing from God. Why is that important? Hearing from God is important because you need God’s voice to help you fulfill God’s purpose in the suffering. You need God’s voice in order to become spiritually mature or Christlike.

In order to hear God, you must put off all sin. Our good pastor writes:

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21).

Notice how he describes our response to sin: lay aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. To lay it aside means to forsake it.

A fascinating fact about the term used her by James to describe sin comes from a root word for ear wax. I love that word picture. Essentially, if you have sin in your life, your sin hinders you from hearing what God has to say to you in the midst of or after a tragedy. Your sin blocks you from hearing God.

 

Hear from God through His Word and Obey It

The third strategy or step closely aligns with the second. Not only should we lay aside or put off sin, but we also should read our Bibles carefully in order to hear from God. Once we hear from God, we want to obey what the Bible teaches us in the midst of or after our suffering. In this way, we position ourselves to become Christlike through the suffering – which is one of God’s purposes in it.

James writes in the verse we just cited:

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21).

Pastor James continues:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does (James 1:22-25).

The very best position to handle suffering and tragedy is maintain a close connection to the Bible, which is God’s voice. Read it. Study it. Do this day after day. In moments in and after tragedy, it may be moment after moment. Contemplate what it says and means, plus what are the implications for your current circumstance. In the process, pray and ask God to give you wisdom as you consider what the Bible means (cf., James 1:5).

Whenever you look at, remember, and do God’s Word, you will be inevitably changed and blessed. Therefore, James’ third strategy or step relates to reading, studying, meditating, and obeying God’s Word as it contains in it the voice of God which helps you in the process of Christlikeness.

 

Be Sensitive to How You Respond to God and His Word in Your Suffering

The fourth strategy or step follows the previous three. Pastor James encourages us strongly to be sensitive to how we respond to God and His Word in the midst of or after our suffering. Notice how he explains it:

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:26-27).

He suggests being sensitive to what you want (or how you are thinking), what you say, and what you do. You and I could summarize it this way:

1. Listen to what you say
2. Pay close attention to what you want or think
3. Serve others consistently even in your suffering

In doing these things, Pastor James suggests that we can have confidence that we are responding to our tragedy in helpful ways that will produce what God desires to produce in the midst of and after our suffering.

 

Tragedy Is Hard and After Tragedy Can Be Harder

No doubt, the suffering and tragedies in our lives are hard. The sad reality is this: as hard as our suffering or initial tragedy is, not maintaining the proper position to handle it well only makes it harder. Our response determines the severity of our suffering.

My prayer for you, as well as Pastor James, is that you will consider carefully these four strategies or steps to place yourself in the absolute strongest position to respond to tragedy in beneficial ways for your soul and those around you.