Season 4 Podcast 73 “Tragedy.”
As a good soldier prepares for the assault of the enemy, we must prepare for the assault of tragedy. Tragedy does not define our nature. Tragedy reveals our nature and defines the weaknesses in our armor against evil, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Tragedy comes to us all. Those who use tragedy to strengthen their armor are true disciples of Christ. Those who use tragedy as an excuse to abandon God, to abandon truth, or to abandon that which they know is right and to run to sin will find, upon reflection, that they used tragedy as an excuse to follow their true desires. Tragedy does not create one’s nature. Tragedy is the magic mirror that reflects one’s true character. Tragedy does not cause one to lose his faith. Tragedy reveals the strengths or weaknesses of one’s faith. Paul said, “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Tragedy is never neutral. Tragedy either causes us to strengthen our faith or Tragedy causes us to drop the illusions that we had about our faith. James calls tragedy “the trial of our faith.”
James 1:3-4Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
In. First Peter we read
1 Peter 1:7
“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”
Paul adds
Romans 5:3-5
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
In other words, tragedy puts our faith on trial. Without our faith being put on trial, we cannot measure our progression or the strength of our faith. It has its analogy in nature. Things are tested only by resistance and strengthened only by opposition. Few of us in life escape tragedy. Just as we physically prepare for a storm before the storm, we must spiritually prepare for the tragedy before the tragedy. True faith is in God not in the fiery fluctuations of our factitious lives. True faith in God is a shield that protects us from the “fiery darts” of the wicked.
Life is filled with ten thousand trials, but there is only one tragedy and that is spiritual death brought about by willful rebellion against God. To die physically is to have the spirit separate from the body. To did spiritually is to have the soul separate from God through willful disobedience.
God, ever preserving agency, by necessity, leaves the choice entirely to us. Perhaps our daily prayer should not be, ‘Let me avoid sorrow,’ but our prayer should be, ‘Let all my sorrow be godly.” In Man’s Search for Meaning, Doctor Frankl quotes Dostoevsky:
“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”
In patience in suffering lies the hope of redemption. It is easier to believe in God than it is to believe that God believes in us. In Candide, Voltaire’s brilliant satire, that would have made Juvenal blush, Candide and two philosophers, Pangloss and Martin, pass the time in endless disputes over the nature of good and evil. They consult a famous Dervish, known for his wisdom.
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