What God Wants Us to Learn From Tragedies

As of this week, some 27,000 people have died or are missing because of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Families have been torn apart by this disaster. Why? And why should you and I be concerned over tragedies like this?

The Bible has a lot to say about tragedies, and why they happen. God says there is an important lesson we should learn from them.

Tragedies in Christ’s time

When Jesus Christ walked this earth as a human, He spoke about two tragedies that occurred. The first was the killing of perhaps hundreds of Galileans by Pontius Pilate, then governor of Judea. The second was the death of 18 people when a tower collapsed.

Christ said of both of these events that those who died weren’t worse people than those who lived. But He said to those present “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:1-5). What did Christ mean when He said this?

Repent of what?

To repent means to change. Christ said that unless we change our lifestyles, we will ultimately perish just like those in tragedies throughout history. So what is it about our lifestyle that needs to be changed?

To answer that, we must go all the way back to our first parents, Adam and Eve. God gave them a choice: to listen to Him and live by what He says is right and wrong, or to decide for themselves what is right and wrong. God said that they would have life by following Him, but death would happen by rejecting Him.

For a while Adam and Eve lived according to God’s instructions. But Satan the devil came along and said that God was holding them back. He said that they would not die if they ate of the forbidden fruit, and they would be as smart as God, knowing what’s good and what’s evil. So Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie and rejected God’s truth. The result was sin—the breaking of God’s laws! Heartache, tragedies and death have followed ever since.

Just like our first parents, we, too, have been influenced by Satan and have not followed God’s instructions. And even though there are good things that we do, it is the bad things that we think are okay that cause so many of our problems. God says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

So what we need to repent of is sin and rejecting God! We need to return to God and listen to His instructions, not our human reasoning.

God is deeply concerned about you and me. He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Though He cares about physical suffering, it is our spiritual life and death that He cares about most. God does grant special protection to His people, but His purpose for His children is never thwarted even though He may sometimes allow tragedy in the life of a Christian.

Will we learn the lesson?

So what will we do now? Will we shrug off this recent tragedy and be glad it didn’t happen to us? Or will we take a long, hard look at ourselves and realize that we need to change our lives to be in agreement with God’s standards?

If we turn to God, we will ultimately receive eternal life. If we don’t, then God says we will ultimately perish forever. God doesn’t want that tragedy to happen to you. And you shouldn’t either.

Interestingly, it is this time of year that the first of God’s holy days occur. And these spring holy days picture putting sin out of our lives and wholeheartedly following God.

To learn more about sin, repentance and God’s great plan for mankind shown through His festivals, see our Fundamental Beliefs “6. Sin and God’s Law,” “9. Repentance” and “13. The Festivals of God.”