Chapter 1
Getting Priorities Right in Tragic Situations

What is most obvious is not always what is most important
I recall driving home one warm spring evening from an appointment out of town. As I crossed Toronto on the 401 highway at the legal limit of 100 km per hour, the car in front of me suddenly skidded in a circle and stopped right in the middle of the highway. I pulled my car off to the shoulder, ran back and asked the driver what was the matter. The driver simply stared ahead and kept repeating, "I don't know where he came from." I noticed that the windshield of the car was full of cracks as though it had sustained a heavy impact. The passenger in the car informed me that they had just struck a person. In disbelief, I asked where the person was and she pointed to a form lying on the other side of the highway. During the two or three seconds it took to get to the unconscious person I tried to think of what I could do to help him. Not being trained in first aid, I could only think of the need for a clear air-way, stopping any bleeding, and covering the person for shock. When I approached the injured man, it was easy to see he was breathing normally, there was no apparent bleeding, and I soon had him covered with a coat to help prevent shock. However, one of his legs was clearly bent in a direction it was not designed to go. It was a bad fracture that would certainly need the surgeon's attention if the man survived his other injuries.

As we all know, there is an order of priority for attending to injured people's needs. While it was very evident that the man's fractured leg required attention, there were other, more demanding issues to address on the short term. He needed to be stabilized so that his life would be spared. The choice between stopping life threatening bleeding and reducing a fractured leg is very obvious. Everyone involved in the paramedical and medical community knows very well the necessity of prioritizing the patient's needs at an accident site and ignoring certain other important, but not life threatening problems in order to concentrate on saving the person's life.

So clearly, there is an order of priority in attending to the needs of the person who has just been devastated by tragedy. Some of the things which seem to scream out for attention can be safely ignored in the short term. Other things, which might slip our attention as they quietly proceed with their lethal enterprise, are in desperate need of addressing.

The great problem for many when they fall into a circumstance full of pain and tragedy, is that they want to stop and try to figure out why it happened in the first place. "Why me?" they ask. This is possibly the worst thing the person in pain can do. At the time it seems the most important question to ask and yet, it is the one least likely to be answered right then. In fact it is a search for information that is irrelevant at that critical moment.

Doing is more important than thinking
The story of Abraham offering up Isaac affords an excellent example of what to do when the crisis first strikes. It should be noted that I speak first to the matter of what to do rather than how to think in crisis situations. People who have been devastated by tragedy immediately seek to think their way through the situation. The question "Why?" crowds into their thoughts and dominates their horizon. Now, while thinking is important, it is a poor time to try to think critically about such matters when your world has collapsed. Other things are more pressing at that desperate moment. The person who is in the water over their head, and does not know how to swim, should not waste precious time asking how they got into this predicament in the first place, but rather, "What do I do to get out?" Only when they are safe on shore can they afford themselves the luxury of reflecting on how they got in over their heads to start with!

My son who is a trained and practicing para-medic has told me often of his reaction when he arrives at an accident site. Because of his college training he has memorized thoroughly the procedures to enact when a specific problem is observed at the scene. He tells me that his emotions are turned off and he acts instinctively as he observes what is presented to him. After delivering the patient to the hospital, his emotions may catch up to him and cause him some distress, but while addressing the need at hand, he is swift and efficient in dealing with the most important needs of the patient.

Clearly we cannot expect all people who are suddenly caught up in tragedy to know just how to respond to the situation. Those who have experience in dealing with difficulties are more adept, but those who are in a sad situation for the first time may flounder. That is when the friends around the person need to act for them. I was in Scotland a while ago revisiting some churches where I had preached three years earlier. When I had dinner in the home of an elder in one church he reminded me of my first visit and the message I gave then. He assured me he had not forgotten the points in the sermon. The sermon was on Genesis 22 and dwelt on the three things to do when tragedy strikes. He then shared with me that when a fellow elder had recently gone through some very difficult times, he was able to take the story of Abraham and apply it gently to the grieving man's heart.

The apparent absurdities in Abraham's situation
It is so easy to breeze through the story of Abraham, but it was certainly difficult for him to live that particular section of his life described in Genesis 22. It seems impossible that the Lord actually meant Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Nothing of this sort was ever known in the history of God's dealings with His people. What parent would wish to murder their own child? Call it sacrifice if you will, Abraham must have looked on the situation as an act of murder.

Another thing which made it appear that God was making a mistake had to do with the fact that this child was the child of promise. It was through this child that God promised to bless the earth. From Isaac's descendants God pledged that a great nation would arise. Now, because of this strange request of God, all the promises God made to Abraham were going to be ruined! A dead person cannot produce children. The whole situation was irrational to say the least. So, very often, as far as our point of view is concerned, God does make "mistakes".

Many people find themselves in similar situations in their own generation as Abraham did in his generation. How dreadful for parents to watch helplessly as their child slips into a coma and then as they sleep the sleep of the dead. How devastating for a person to hear their spouse of many years confess they no longer love them and are leaving the marriage. Imagine listening to the doctor tell you that the biopsy proved malignant and that there is no use in operating as the disease is so pervasive. Dreadful news always seems to be a horrible mistake on the part of the one bearing the evil tidings. Denial is the first weapon we use to resist the reality that cruelly invades our lives.

A further indication of the absurd dimensions of this story centers on the fact that most parents dearly love their children and would move mountains to preserve them alive and well in this world. This is not a situation of Abraham passively standing by and watching his son die. The boy was to die at Abraham's own hand! This flew in the face of every parental instinct of Abraham. Therefore what he does in this situation appears all the more incredible.

Three emergency procedures to follow in crisis
But, what do you do in these critical situations? What can be done to help yourself as you try to fathom the dimensions of the tragedy? What is the spiritual first aid that needs to be enacted? Abraham gives us three significant ways to stabilize yourself when you are hit with disaster. If we implement these steps to help ourselves, we will certainly come out of the difficulty in a far better state than those who ignore these effective steps.

The three things of paramount importance when you discover yourself in great tragedy are as follows: 1. Obey God, 2. Worship God, 3. Trust God. Sadly, these are the last three things many people wish to do. Instead, they seek to think the unthinkable, to analyze what defies analysis, to understand what is a mystery. Until the person in pain moves past their efforts to understand and begins to do what is right, they will flounder.

As we consider these steps to control the damage a tragedy creates, I recognize that the person in the position of suffering may not wish to do these things. That is understood. In the early stages of seeking to survive a catastrophe, we do not ask the person to "like" the necessary procedures any more than the patient likes the thought of the surgeon's scalpel. To recognize the necessity of the actions and get on with them is what is important.

“I can't or I don't want to?”
Some people wrongly equate a dislike of doing something with the inability to do something. So, when we say "I can't do that," we really are saying, "I don't want to do that." Occasionally one of my children, when I ask them to turn off the T.V. and get on with their homework will say to me, "Dad, I just have to watch this T.V. program." Now, I must confess that when I hear that statement from my child I am tempted to respond in a rather unusual manner. What I am tempted to say to them is something like, "Well I know you really want to see that program very much, but I do not believe that you 'have to see it', and to prove to you that you do not 'have to see it', I am going to insist that you go to your room right now and start the homework."

What I wish to demonstrate to my child is that there is a world of difference between saying "I can't" and saying "I don't want to." I wish them to see that they are far more capable of doing certain things than they realize. I also know that they are already aware of their ability to shut off the T.V. and miss the program and I wish them to word their thoughts more accurately when they speak. That, of course is exactly what they do not want to do. They think that by wording their resistance to my request as they do, it will excuse them from displaying genuine rebellion.

Well, we are certainly capable of doing much more than we modestly deny. The steps Abraham took are achievable by any Christian in crisis, and to say they are not, is a form of self-deception that will only compound the problems at hand.

The parents who refuse to clean out their dead son's bedroom two or three years after his death will often say, "I can't bring myself to do it." Kind hearted counselors will often agree with this and reinforce the deception. The best thing for grieving parents is to get in the room and box up the clothing, etc., and ship it off to a city mission or whatever. We will speak more about such things later in the book; for now the point is that we must face up to the fact that distasteful things are still necessary for our good and for our deliverance from bondage in crises.

Our advantage over Abraham in tragedy
What was so especially difficult for Abraham was the fact that there did not appear to be a mentor for him to help coach him through the difficulty. As the writer to the Hebrews makes clear, our duty to one another is to consider how to "stimulate one another to love and good works". People in crisis desperately need a loving and wise person to come alongside to assist them as they navigate their way through the minefield of adversity. This is what Abraham did not appear to have. He had to go it alone.

We shall speak more about this matter of being a mentor or comforter to those in pain in another place; suffice it to say here that we need to recognize our responsibility to bear one another's burdens.

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