Life is fragile. We live a tenuous existence on this fallen and frail earth. Ours is a life full of tragedy, pain and hardship. If you are reading these words right now, you are already aware of that reality because you are facing the tragic loss of a loved one.

But the loss you are facing is especially hard to bear because it seems so senseless, like such a waste. One of the people you care deeply about took his or her own life. In all likelihood, they woke up on the morning of their death with the expectation that this would be their last day on this earth. They anticipated and planned their death, and that awful reality is hard for you to comprehend. You may be angry. You may have feelings of guilt. You may still be numb, afraid to unlock the feelings you have inside. But I suspect the hardest part of this experience is that you wonder why it happened. Why did something so tragic, so painful, have to take place?

When bad things happen, we ask the difficult question, “Why?” Too often we try to answer that question with human reasoning. But usually our finite minds fail us and we must accept the reality that we don’t know all of the “whys” in life. The reassuring news, though, is that someone does know. God.

One of the greatest consolations during a time of crisis is the understanding that God has a greater purpose for our earthly suffering. That may sound trite and not what you want to hear right now, but our pain does have purpose. God does not promise an exemption from pain and suffering in this life. Suffering is inevitable. But, even when it seems to make no sense to us, God can turn it around and use it for good.

You may be a lot like me, though, when you come face-to-face with a difficult situation in life. I am like the kid in the back of the classroom with his hand up frantically waving it for attention. “Oh, God, choose me! I don’t understand. You are going too fast, God. Please, choose to answer my questions!” On the other hand, if I understand that there is a purpose behind a problem, I can trust that God is allowing certain things to happen for his greater purpose. I don’t have to have all my questions answered. I can relax and know that God is in control.

By faith, we can understand and know the purpose behind suffering. The Bible says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” (Rom. 8:28, NLT). God is working in the midst of everything that happens, both good and bad. Does that mean divorce? Yes. Does that mean a financial setback? Yes. Does that mean the loss of a job? Yes. Does that even mean suicide and death? The answer is still a resounding, “Yes.” He uses all things, good and bad, for a greater purpose. He does not intentionally cause bad things to happen to us, but He is able to use the problems of this fallen world for our growth.

A lot of people blame God for things that He shouldn’t be blamed for. But bad things happen, not because God chooses them to, but because of choices we have made. God created us with the freedom to choose right or wrong. And from the very beginning, humankind has most often chosen to do wrong. The negative experiences or losses that we face in life are due to the fact that we live in a fallen world marked by sin. The cumulative effect of the wrong choices humans have made since the dawn of time has led to the pain we experience every day.

But we love to point the finger of blame at God when things go wrong in our lives, especially when we experience an unexpected loss of a loved one. God, though, is not responsible for the bad things that happen in our lives.

God could easily erase all sin and suffering at the snap of his fingers. In the blink of an eye, it could be gone. But there is only one way that He could do that. He would have to take away our freedom to choose. If we were unable to choose to go against God’s will, there would be no sin, and consequently no suffering. But there would also be no real love, because the essence of love is freedom. Thankfully, God did not make us as robots but as humans with the capacity to choose Him or reject Him. He did that because He loves us and desires that we be able to love him back of our own free will.

As creatures with a free will, we all have an ultimate choice to make regarding our relationship with God. And tragedy has a way of bringing us back to the reality of that choice. The tragedy you now face should be a wake-up call to get serious about understanding the implications of walking with God in this one and only life. It’s a wake-up call for you to capture those opportunities to get answers to those deep questions of the soul.

If you have been testing the waters of faith, it’s time to make a decision. Eternity may be closer than you think. You may have been drawn to church in recent days because you have this hole in your heart that you can’t explain. You can’t seem to get rid of the nagging fears in your life, and you are searching desperately for peace and contentment.

You may have questions and doubts about your eternal destiny. And, despite your efforts to make sense of it all, you have not been able to find the meaning of life. Tragic events have a way of knocking us down on one knee, emotionally or relationally or in some other realm. I think God would say, “Put the other knee down and give me your life and your worship.”

And I would ask you to put the other knee down and pray, “God, have your way in my life.”

One day we will stand before God, and everything in our lives that has not been built on Jesus Christ and His church will crumble. Now, please understand me here, I’m not saying that God caused your loved one to take his or her own life to give you a wake up call. It is God’s prerogative to do what He will, and I do not presume to know His divine will in these matters. But I do know that God uses catalyzing events like this to bring people to Him, to remind them of important realities in life.

Jesus talked about one of these realities in His most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount:

Many today are building their lives on treacherous foundations. Their lives are characterized by inner fears, and rightly so, because they are one storm away from disaster. Oh, they have the trappings of religion, but there is not real fruit to indicate any evidence of an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. Their lives are built instead on power, wealth or status, or on beliefs and philosophies that have no basis in God’s eternal truth.

Many American’s today face the same choices that Solomon of old faced. Solomon, the grandest of Israel’s kings, took a free fall into a forty-year abyss of partying. This sovereign was wealthier than we could ever imagine, and he used his great wealth and power to try everything “under the sun.” He had seven hundred concubines at his beck and call. He sampled the finest wines and the best of foods. He built expansive buildings inlayed with the purest gold and the rarest of jewels. You name it; he did it.

Near the end of his life, here is what Solomon said, because he tried to do all of these things by himself, away from God, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecc. 2:11).

The Bible also says, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Tim. 6:7). All of our achievements and acquisitions become meaningless when weighed on the scales of eternity. And often it takes an event of awful proportions to bring us to our senses. Through a crisis of fear we turn to the things that really matter in life. In the blink of an eye many realize how fragile life is and wake up to a spiritual reality they have worked hard to ignore.

Don’t ignore death or the frailty of your existence. Prepare to die by placing your eternity in the hands of God, so that you can begin at long last to really live. Are you ready to really live? Ironically, true life is found in Christ’s death. The sinless Son of God was spit upon, tortured, and hung from a cross to die for our sins. God took that evil act and made it into something wonderful for the salvation of the world, because three days later Christ rose from the dead.

Through his death and resurrection, he conquered sin and death so that we could live forever. If you believe that, if you accept God’s gift of life through the sacrifice of His Son, you will find the life you’ve been longing for. We have been pardoned. Our sins have been forgiven, through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When we have that personal connection with Christ, the trials, the evil things, the bad circumstances, even the suicide of a loved one, all fulfill a greater purpose because we are “called according to His purpose.” While we suffer for a little while from our loss here on earth, we long for the plans and purposes of God to be fulfilled. Our suffering loosens the grip the world has on our lives because it gives us a longing for heaven. It gives us a hope for what is to come.

If you have placed your life in the hands of God, you will find ultimate fulfillment with God in eternity. All that you have experienced, good and bad, will come together in a beautiful tapestry. You will finally be able to see what God sees as He looks down from heaven on the fabric of your life. So place your faith in God and experience the hope that your suffering is not in vain.

Ed Young
Fellowship Church, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
www.fellowshipchurch.com

Pastor Ed Young is the founding and Senior Pastor of Fellowship Church. Known for its creativity and innovation, the church has grown to more than 18,000 in weekend attendance since its inception thirteen years ago. The author of more than half a dozen books, Pastor Young received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Lisa, have been married twenty years and have four children.