OCTOBER 22 "WHERE IS GOD IN LIFE'S TRAGEDIES?"


Certainly, many of life's tragedies we are not going to get an explanation on. We will have to wait until we get on the other side of eternity before we can any reasonable explanation. Right now, all we can do is grieve and maintain our faith in God, when it seems hard, in the midst of tragedy. The end of the story that we read today is that Gedaliah is murdered and the rest of the Jews that are with him are slaughtered. First question we are going to ask is going to be, "where was God?", not "why did Ishmael do such a wicked thing?" No, the 1st question is always, "where was God?" However this is one story that we do get privy insight into, unlike most other tragedies, in this story we get to see the whole story unfold. It starts with a solemn warning to Gedaliah. Johanan is able to find out (now how was Johanan able to find out except by divine orchestration or you can say "coincidence" but I won't). So Johanan is able to find out, by divine orchestration that there is going to be an attempt to assassinate Gedaliah. "Phew, that's a good thing, a tragedy averted, Gedaliah won't be assassinated and the Jews that are with him will not be murdered and all thrown into a cistern. Thank-you Jesus! Isn't God good!!! Oh wait, that's not how it goes.....Gedaliah doesn't listen to the warning, proceeds in his stubbornness and perhaps a bit of arrogance (nothing can touch me I'm God's leader and child) and the tragedy, that God was trying to avert, comes to pass, regardless and instead of everyone shouting "praise God, He is good!" They are shouting, "where was God!!" We don't have answers and explanations into every tragedy that happens in life, but our reading today does give us insight that perhaps, many tragedies in life, God did try to prevent but it was a stubborn, perhaps arrogant or prideful person that caused the tragedy NOT to be averted and what we have in the end, is not people praising God, but cursing, accusing Him and shouting "where's God!"

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