Why Death?

Last week I started a discourse on Death and what I think our appropriate response to it should be. If you haven’t read last week’s article, read it here.

Last week’s article ended on the note that Death is never out of God’s plan and purpose, is the end of our lives on this side and continuation on the other. Thus, death shouldn’t be feared.

I love that many concurred with what I wrote but I have to admit here that I don't always believe or feel what I know to be true. I don’t always accept death as it comes immediately, I often have to talk myself through the truth.

The truth is, DEATH IS PAINFUL. Especially when it happens in brutal ways. Why do people have to die in accidents? Why do people get killed in their sleep? Why do storms and natural disasters take lives? What good is there? Couldn’t God have created a system where we just all slept into our death? And another system where his angels cushion the pains and grieve? These are all questions I still ask every day when people die. Death might have lost the poison in its sting, but it still stings.

For a quite lengthy portion of my life, I was traumatized by death and life. And I found myself in a place where I went for almost a year begging God to take me home. I remember waking on some mornings and hissing because I was alive. I figured that I was just 19-21 years old, had no real commitments, and would be forgotten in weeks if I died, save the first few post-houmous birthdays and anniversaries. What aggravated my turmoil in that season was the death of people who I deemed more useful than I was. A family friend who died after a sudden illness leaving three young children, a family from church where the wife and 3 children died in an accident. I had a problem with God and his ways. And why he took people when he did, why he did.

Of course, I didn’t die like I wanted to. LOL. God laughed in my face and here I am years later. But I did learn something.

That I (We) cannot question God and his purposes.

Now this article is about God’s sovereignty. I’ve adopted a personal definition of God’s sovereignty.

God’s sovereignty is his reserved veto right to do whatever he wants, when he wants, with whomever he wants, how he wants, and not have to answer anybody for it.

Isaiah asks a rhetorical question in chapter 49 where he asks if the clay can question the design of the potter. It sounded cliche at the end of Wale Adenuga’s productions but we are indeed nothing but pencils in the hands of the creator. It’s a simple, painful but glorious truth.

What then is the point of life? If we could be here today and gone tomorrow? If I could get killed tonight or knocked down by a motorbike tomorrow morning? Why all the struggle and hassle?

I will tackle my thoughts on this in another article and my thoughts on whether God is good in another. I want to hear your thoughts on this one. How do you reconcile God’s sovereignty with his goodness when bad things happen?

I leave you with two songs that help me think about Death. Enjoy the listen.