Death & Assuming God's Reasons

When a person dies a fairly young death, people like to assign a reason as to why God would remove them from this earth. A lot of time with religious people, and especially fundamentalist, make a determination depending on what they think of the person. When it comes to people that are deemed good and wholesome, it's considered a tragedy and figure that "God must have a reason even if we don't understand."

Both my mothers died at relatively young ages. My first mom was 26 and my second mom was almost 53. They should have had years to live but God saw fit to take them "home" to heaven. Sometimes I've wondered why and I could make some assumptions but I've never thought that God took them home because of some evil that they have done. Anyone who knew my mothers probably never thought that either.

When it comes to others, they wonder what sin that person was committing. If they know about certain sin or don't agree with their religious beliefs, they start quoting James 1:15 "sin bringeth forth death" and other examples of lives in the Bible being cut short.

I know it's true and I even wrote about it in my family about James 1:15 personified in our family.

I know a young man who died in a motorcycle accident. I was told that he had gone back to his sinful life and that it was God's punishment for not serving God anymore.

A few years ago, one of my Bible college professors died an early death. On facebook I saw a pastor I know say it was because the man had become a staunch atheist and was writing a book refuting God's substitutionary death on the cross for our sins and that God killed this professor because he was making a mockery of God.

In the past year or so, a couple of young men of highly visible religious people have committed suicide. One's from fundamentalist background and the other from a evangelical background. What's sad is that the fundamentalist's family received sympathy and a "wonder why" but the family from the evangelical background received condemnation and suggestions that it was because they're not really serving the "true God."

Here's my question? Why do we speculate the worst? Why do we think that a person must have done or is doing something wrong and that is why they died?

We should not assume the reason why tragedy and death come to people at a young age. Only God knows.

It's insensitive, callous, and just cruel to state publicly that God killed someone out of what you might perceive as "righteous judgment."

Let's support the families by showing love and compassion. Stand with them in prayer. They don't deserve your unfounded opinion of God's purpose of allowing a tragedy to come into their lives.