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It’s true, bad things sometimes happen to Christians. When we read Hebrews 11—the Bible’s great hall of faith—we cheer the victories of those who, through faith, subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, escaped the edge of the sword, and waxed valiant in fight.
But in the middle of verse 35, another group emerges, “others.” The Bible says, “and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” Some were not delivered from torture, their victory being that they didn’t lose their faith. This word, others, introduces a different class of victories achieved by faith. Mockings and scourgings were endured by the martyrs just mentioned, and they were not delivered, at least in the way we normally think of such. All of this is an attempt by Satan to get the person to renounce his or her faith.
My husband and I once knew a man—a Christian man who loved the Lord. But it happened that this man’s small son died, and he blamed God for it. Over time, he developed a deep, ingrained anger against the Lord. It’s an anger that, if given a voice, would say through gritted teeth, “I lived for the Lord. I paid my tithes. I was a faithful church goer. But God still let this horrible thing happen. He didn’t have to do that. He could have stopped it.” This man we knew walked away from God and, as far as we know, stayed away. Tragically, not only did this man lose his little boy, but unless he did come back to God, he also lost his faith.
So how do you keep your faith in the face of tragedy? Let me share an example.
Dr. Jimmy DuPree, who now serves as the vice president of institutional compliance at JSBC, recently shared on Frances & Friends how he and his wife, Cindy, also lost a son. At that time, the DuPrees were pastoring a growing church where people were being saved and their lives transformed through the power of the cross. They were expecting their first child, which was delivered by C-section. Without a clue that anything was wrong, Dr. DuPree wheeled his newborn son down the hall to the hospital nursery so that waiting family and friends could get a glimpse of the new baby. On his way back to see his wife, the doctor whisked Dr. DuPree into a side room and said, “Pastor, I hate to say this, but we’ve encountered complications with Cindy. What she has is seventy-five percent fatal.”
His wife had suffered an amniotic fluid embolism, which experts define as “one of the catastrophic complications of pregnancy in which amniotic fluid or other debris enters into the maternal pulmonary circulation, causing cardiovascular collapse.”1
Afterward, Dr. DuPree stood in that room by himself trying to absorb what he’d been told and thinking, “My wife? They’re telling me she’s going to die?” He prayed before walking out to inform his family and friends who, by this time, knew something was wrong. “Is it the baby?” they asked. “No,” he said. “It’s Cindy.”
The doctors worked to get Cindy stabilized and into ICU. Next, they told Dr. DuPree, “We’ve had complications with the baby.” So they rushed the baby to Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, fifty miles away from where Cindy was in ICU. Dr. DuPree was also told that neither his wife nor his son would likely live.
Ten days passed, and the doctors made it clear that if Cindy was to see her baby boy alive, then she needed to be released immediately and make the trip. On the way to the hospital, Dr. DuPree and Cindy prayed. They arrived at Shands where Cindy was able to hold her son’s hand through the small opening of the neonatal crib, and they prayed over him. Soon after, the baby passed away.
From the hospital where their baby had just died, it was a fifty-five-mile ride home. On the way, Dr. DuPree told his wife, “You know, honey, we’ve got one of two choices. We can either blame God, question Him, and get mad at the fairness of God, or we can be determined that we’re going to make the enemy pay for what He has done.” Cindy didn’t even take a breath. She said, “Oh, he’s going to pay for this.”
The DuPrees are convinced that when trials and situations like this come up, it reveals what’s truly in your heart. I Peter 1:7 says, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
Dr. DuPree said, “People were watching how my wife and I responded, and when they saw that our commitment was stronger to God, there were over a hundred people saved. The church tripled in size. We didn’t expect that. God gave the increase of souls because we were faithful, regardless of what had happened.”
As these two testimonies illustrate, when bad things happen, we can either grow bitter and lose our faith, or we can draw closer to God and increase our faith.
The man I was talking about earlier who lost his son—what a different life he would have lived had he not become angry and bitter against God. And think what a miserable life he did live, eaten up with anger and bitterness in his heart.
Yes, bad things sometimes happen to Christians, and those bad things can cause tremendous heartache and pain. Why do they happen? Simply put, we live in a fallen world. But when bad things do happen and you find yourself caught between blaming God or believing Him—choose to keep your faith in Him, and watch the Lord lead you through.
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