What do you do when someone you know and care for dies at a young age? I have experienced this tragedy all too often in next generation ministry. Whether by freak accident, overdose, or the taking of one’s life, the one thing that is certain is that these young ones left us before it was their time. God may allow events to happen where one does lose their life, but it’s not God’s will that one you dearly love be run over by a drunk driver, die to drug abuse, or take life into their own hands.
God’s Word teaches us that we battle the flesh, the world, and the devil and all of these often factor into an untimely death. Abortions and miscarriages are a reality too and the associated pain can last a lifetime. As the old saying goes, “A parent should never have to bury their child.” There are many things we will never understand on this side of heaven. God’s kingdom has begun in our hearts but will not be consummated until the end of time. Until then, we will have to wait for many answers that we have questions for. This includes the question of “God, why did you allow this to happen?”
A key thing to understand in the meantime as you wait is that God did not make this evil happen. God gives humans the ability to make choices and often the poor choices one human makes unfortunately affects the life and health of another human. And yes, fair or not, sometimes this results in one’s death.
I know what it’s like to carry the casket of a young man and a dear friend that left this world too early. I’ve had to do it on more than one occasion. I don’t know what it’s like to bury one’s own child and quite honestly, can’t imagine what it would be like. But, the one commonality we share is that someone in the next generation that we both knew and loved has gone on and passed from this life to the next.
When this happens, you’re really faced with two choices. You can have fear or you can have faith. Two expressions that have become popular in recent youth culture are the expressions FOMO and FROG. There are probably bracelets for both. If you have a “Fear Of Missing Out,” you might do and try a lot of things that you normally wouldn’t because after all, YOLO. Perhaps you are young yourself and you see your friend pass from this life to the next. You may think to yourself, “What if that was me? I can’t wait on God. What if I pass away without experiencing ____________________.” There are many movies that depict this type of scene and the line that causes one character to cave into the peer pressure of another character the most usually goes something like “This may be your/our last day on earth together.”
This kind of mindset, however, is the opposite of Fully Relying On God. No one said trusting God was easy. When I think about a FROG, I think leap or jump. Some frogs jump higher and farther than others. But just like a frog, if you are going to trust God with your life’s circumstances, you are going to have to take a leap of faith. In our minds, some leaps are going to require more faith than others because some trials are harder than others. But I think in God’s mind, if you just have a little faith, he’ll take care of the rest.