Life is Tragic and God is Faithful
By: Pastor Aaron Syvertsen
This past winter, I had the opportunity to participate in a leadership cohort with a handful of other pastors and ministry leaders from across the country. Pastor Dhati Lewis of Blueprint Church in Atlanta spoke to us one week and said there are two truths we need to acknowledge and affirm every single day in order to lead emotionally healthy lives:
Life is tragic and God is faithful.
While the whole cohort was immensely helpful, this phrase is the one thing I still can’t shake months later. Once I heard it, I “see” it everywhere, every day. It’s not that life is tragic or God is faithful, as if you need to choose one. It’s also not that life is tragic but God is faithful, as if one cancels out the other. It’s that life is tragic and God is faithful.
There is no such thing as good days and bad days, there are just days that include things we both celebrate and things we grieve. God named his people Israel, which literally means “the man who struggles”. Life is tragic and God is faithful.
1) Life is Tragic
Of the two truths, this is the one that seems to be universally accepted. Pastor Dhati made the observation that all religions exist in an attempt to try and answer the questions, “why is life tragic and what’s the solution?” I would add that it’s not just religion as we commonly define it that wrestles with this, but any worldview including the secular humanist or the self-professed nones who create a lens detached from an institutional religion to address these same questions and live accordingly.
You could “ditch” religion, but you can’t ditch these questions. There is nowhere we can go, no job we can work at, no place we can move to or school we could put our kids into where there won’t be struggle. God allows pain, and even more jolting at times, He leads us into pain.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” Matthew 4:1-2
Right now, when I open my NY Times app, here are the four “Most Popular” stories:
1) U.S. Gas Prices Hit a High
2) Putin is Ready for a Long War with Ukraine
3) Gun Deaths Surged During First Year of Pandemic
4) A Seismic Shift Fractures Evangelicals
Economic woes. Global unrest. Sociological strife. Religious fracturing. They all reveal a perspective on the tragedy that is life, the pain and struggle that encircle us in small and big ways every day. The apostle Paul says it like this in a letter he once wrote:
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” Rom 8:22
For we know. We all know, but we all too often choose to not acknowledge it, choosing instead to live in denial. But we do know, we all know. Life is tragic.
2) God is Faithful
There may be no better quality to see and observe in someone than being trustworthy. It is such a relief to be with someone or work with someone that you know, deep down, you can trust. You trust their yes is yes and their no is no (Matthew 5:37), you trust they will do what they said they will do, you trust they will be honest with you whenever you approach them. Oh that we would yearn to see leaders developed and spotlighted because of their character (see: trustworthiness) more than their charisma.
Of all the graces upon my life, possibly none is greater than my Spirit-empowered belief that God is trustworthy. While he allows pain, and at times leads us to into difficult situations, He promises to sustain us through the struggle:
He will never leave nor forsake us (Deut 31:6)
Not one of His children will be snatched from His hand (John 10:29)
He who began a good work in us will be faithful to bring it to completion (Phil 1:6)
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col 1:17)
Just as there is nowhere you can go in this world where there won’t be struggle, so too there is nowhere the children of God can go where they are not kept, sustained, and upheld by the presence and power of a God who is faithful.
3) Life is Tragic and God is Faithful
Pastor Dhati emphasized the key that we cannot just affirm these two truths in separation, but we need to hold them in tension every day. He provided an example to illustrate this from his own life: the date September 19th.
Up until a few years prior, that date meant nothing on the calendar to him, but all that changed when, on September 19th, both his dad died and his son was born. Ever since, September 19th is a ringing reminder of this truth: he grieves the death of his dad and he celebrates the life of his son. Life is tragic and God is faithful.
If we neglect one or the other, we fail to live the way God has called us to live. So, if we don’t acknowledge the tragedy of life, then we live in denial, lie to ourselves, and fail to empathize with those who are suffering.
And if we don’t acknowledge the faithfulness of God, we lose hope, struggle to persevere, and look to cope in ways that will never deliver. It is only when we live in the tension of both truths, that we can seek to bring a Kingdom perspective to a broken world.
Final question. How? How can we live life this way?
Confession.
Confession is “the willingness to tell the truth of what is going on inside”. We confess the emotions that we are actually experiencing and as opposed to lying to ourselves under some sort of “fake it until you make it” mentality.
God’s call on your life begins with a confession. “If you confess (tell the truth) with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Rom 10:9
The cross of Jesus Christ is the single-most illustrative event of this truth. The crucifixion of Jesus was a tragic abuse of injustice where an innocent man was wrongfully accused, arrested, and sentenced to death. And the crucifixion of Jesus, along with the resurrection, is the sovereign plan of a loving, faithful God who healed the rupture of the fall through the death of Christ.
Once that confession that Jesus is Lord is made, then you can confess daily what is truly going on inside of us, and testify each day that being a restored believer in a fallen world, life is tragic and God is faithful. We are free to tell the truth about the hurt, loneliness, sadness, angst, anger, fear, shame, guilt, and/or gladness you feel. Tell the truth to yourself, tell the truth to the Lord, tell the truth to a world around you. You will not experience gladness until you confess the other emotions truly.
Here is a practical, daily exercise: Ask yourself in the morning, how are you? Which emotion from the list above are you feeling today? Are you willing to tell the truth about what is inside?
God promises to sustain you, and he will be faithful to his promises, but he will sustain you through the struggle, not outside of it. Gladness is found in resting in the faithfulness of God, but you will not experience true gladness until you confess the truth of the tragedy of the world and the effect it has on your soul.
The cross comes before the crown, but the crown will come.
Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
You could sum up this passage in this way: Life is tragic and God is faithful.