Who Is In Control of Tragedy?

Who Is In Control of Tragedy?

Last Thursday when I made the drive from Fort Worth to Midlothian it was a beautiful day. After a few days of rain there were actually some blue skies. That quickly changed after lunch when Nathan and I noticed that the clouds were really dark. It wasn’t long after returning from lunch that someone notified us that there was a tornado coming toward the church and we needed to take shelter. Being wise in our old age, our first notion was to go outside and watch the tornado. Even though the tornado was not massive or causing severe damage, apart from movies I have never seen something capable of causing damage that close. I was amazed at how calm and blue the skies were behind the storm but yet there was a wall of about 75% of the sky that was black, it was eerily scary. It was a small storm that could have been disastrous had the tornado touched down a small distance in any direction other than it did.

Two weeks ago one of the first friends that I made when I moved to the Fort Worth area was killed in a car wreck. He had a summer job at Christian summer camp in south Texas and was headed there after a relaxing weekend back home. It was a beautiful day with blue skies so he had taken the top of his Jeep while riding down back roads when for some reason or another he lost control and his jeep flipped and he was killed. There were no dark clouds, no tornados, no signs of any danger in the air, yet His life was taken. It was a beautiful day that could have been a great day but yet tragedy occurred.

Who decides when tragedy will occur? It is obvious that we have no control over whether tragedy will occur when a tornado appears or when we take a drive down a country road on a beautiful day. We are not in charge of what tomorrow will bring, God is. Why then is it that we try to micromanage what tomorrow brings while forgetting where we are and what we are doing today? I know I am guilty of this. Focus on where you are today, and how in this very moment every fiber of your body can scream out “JESUS IS LORD!”.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:13-14