“He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation”                   

                                                                                                                     Psalms 91:15-16, KJV

“FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH”

MONDAY MORNING MANNA

On Wednesday July 8^th, thirty three year old Actress Naya Rivera and her 4 year old son went out for what would be their last time together.  It happened that around 1pm Naya and the baby rented a boat to spend some time together on the waters of Lake Piru in California.  According to the Los Angeles Times around 4:47 p.m., that afternoon the Lake Piru staff noticed that Ms. Rivera failed to return her boat on time, so they went out to search for her. After some time 9-1-1 dispatchers, reported that a 4 year old little boy had been found asleep on the boat by himself, wearing his life vest.  Though this story is quite tragic in the sense that a young boy will now be forced to go through the rest of his life without his mother there also exists within it a tidbit of triumph.  The triumph over and against this tragedy is that a four year old boy who could have also lost his life was ultimately saved by the grace of God.  Much like, this story I have found that all of our lives come complete with moments of both tragedy and triumph. The Bible is filled with references of both, for within it we learn of the boy Joseph who endured the tragedy of incarceration yet went on to enjoy the triumph of being able to save his entire family from famine while serving as Prime Minister of Egypt.  Likewise, we become acquainted with a man named Job who endured the tragedy of losing everything he loved and owned only to later enjoy the triumph of receiving a double portion of everything lost.  Most notably, the Scriptures reveal to us Jesus who endured the tragedy of His Crucifixion but just days later enjoyed the triumph of His Resurrection!  The honest truth is that every one of us will likewise experience moments of tragedy in life; however, those moments are not meant to destroy us rather, they are meant to define us. 

Neither of us are exempt from tragedy and in fact, enduring it is most certainly a character builder.  The question becomes how are we as Christians to deal with the tragedies we face in life? The answers to that question are that we are to remain faithful, hopeful and prayerful.  In the 91^st Psalm, the writer begins by informing his readers that their faith and subsequently ours too, should be in God.  In verse one the writer states that He who dwelleth in the secret places of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  This is to suggest that no matter what tragedies we may face the believer ought always remain faithful to God.  The word faithful means steadfast or unmovable!  Faithfulness in the biblical sense has everything to do with maintaining our devotion to God by not allowing anything to pull us away from our ability to fully believe in His power no matter what we may be facing.  Secondly, the believer must remain hopeful during times of tragedy.  Just as being faithful to God carries the idea of being devoted to Him, similarly but not specifically hopefulness is the act of believing that God will soon lead us into a better day. Brothers and Sisters it’s not enough just to remain devoted to God during tragic moments but we must also believe wholeheartedly that trouble will not last forever. Finally, we must deal with tragedy by taking all of those burdens that are too heavy for us to bear to God in prayer. 

God sees our crying out to Him in prayer as an invitation into our situation and even though we may not physically recognize His presence, we must keep in mind that the very minute we prayed about a matter God began working on that matter.  The work being done by God in response to our prayers may sometimes seem to us like a long time which is precisely why both faith and hope in Him must satisfy our souls until we see the manifestation that He is bringing about in the natural realm.

As I pen these words today there seems to be totalistic tragedy all around us.  Presently, we still face a prevailing pandemic that has claimed the lives of well over 130, 000 Americans and that number seems to be on an upward trend.  Additionally, life as we know it is being impacted in ways that may take years to be relieved.  The American public is incarcerated inside their homes.   Whenever they are allowed mobility they must do so wearing face coverings and armed with all sorts of disinfectant agents like Lysol, Clorox Wipes and Hand Sanitizer to name of few.  The local restaurant industry continues to lose millions of dollars each week and all of their patrons are overwhelmingly inconvenienced with having to be served either through take out or risk waiting two to three hours for in seat service.  In like manner, school age children and college students may not be afforded the opportunity to enjoy this next year without interruption to their learning; employees may soon see another round of layoffs;  the hospitals have no bed space available to treat sick patients;  prisons and jails are among the hardest hit with the Coronavirus; religious institutions for the most part remain closed and for the first time in American history the possibility of election tampering this fall is almost certain.  By all accounts the presence of an unseen virus has caused us to experience significant tragedy in America in general and across the globe in particular.  Many are wondering what must we do? My response is simply that we must remain faithful, hopeful and prayerful during this season until God leads us into the season of triumph just around the corner.  We can believe that this is so because God has promised that He would do so in our text of thought today.  To the writer of Psalms ninety one, God says that “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” This short passage is oozing with optimism for through it God identifies faith, hope and prayer as the primary prerequisites for an ushering in of great triumph defined as satisfaction and salvation.  The greatest tragedy of our time would be for us to abuse this moment by failing to accept Jesus as our Savior so that we can soon recognize the reality that God is Mighty to Save!, in even the worst of situations.  My appeal to you today is that you jump in the boat of safety, don your life jacket and as the four year old boy I mentioned earlier did begin to rest in God all the while armed with the knowledge that someday soon these momentary tragedies will be replaced by utter triumph in Jesus Name!   

Dr A. Darrell Barlow