Anchors in the Chaos: A Biblical Roadmap for Tragic Times

The headlines seem relentless. The news cycle is a constant stream of tragic events that can leave us feeling overwhelmed, disoriented, and anxious. As the world reels from chaos and confusion, it’s easy for our hearts to grow numb or sink into despair.

As Christians, how are we supposed to respond? Do we just turn it all off? Are there easy answers or simple platitudes?

In this episode, we cut through the noise to offer a durable, compassionate, and deeply biblical framework for navigating tragic times. We move beyond reactions and opinions to explore a four-part roadmap for processing tragedy in a way that anchors us in the character of God: Mourning, Meeting with God, Meditating on His character, and Moving Forward.

Join us for a conversation that will equip you to grieve with hope, pray with purpose, and become a non-anxious presence of light in a world desperate for clarity and peace.

Transcript

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A cluster of recent and tragic events have highlighted something that's been underway for quite some time, and it's this trajectory of tragedy we see in the US and abroad. These horrors we've witnessed, provoke a critical and important question, and that's how do we wisely process what's going on and winsomely pursue those around us with truths that transform? We originally going to talk about a different topic today, but this is so important that we wanted to create a podcast just for what's going on right now in the midst of our culture. Yeah, we hold that the Bible is more than accurate and reliable. It's trustworthy for today and the situations we're facing. When we look closely at God's timeless truth, we see both descriptive and prescriptive counsel on how we're to move forward in times of tragedy. Welcome to the In and For podcast where we are in and for Christ and in and for culture. I'm Shelley Komoszewski and joined with Brock Anderson and today we're taking a little bit more of a somber tone as we talk about something that's incredibly important as we see a terrible trend in our culture as we've already referenced is this trajectory of tragedy and a recent burst or cluster of events has really highlighted this trajectory that we've been on for quite a while but it has brought it to the forefront and really provoked the question of how do I move forward with this when I feel stuck, when I feel angry. when I feel hopeless, yes, and when I feel just unsure of how to move forward. This is where the Word of God and what we hold about Scripture becomes practical and helps us take our next steps. Fortunately, God is not silent about what to do in times of national tragedy. There's actually more said than we could even cover today, but we want to look at four responses we see in Scripture and walk through them together. And I hope that it helps heal and give you practical next steps to take as you're dealing with the place we all find ourselves in. Yeah, exactly. And these four topics that we're looking at, actually create a process that the Bible gives us to go through in the time of national tragedy or times of tragedy. And this process looks like this. It starts with mourning. And it moves to meeting with God. And meeting with God is... prayer and confession and it's confessing to him or looking to him and expressing anger and expressing sadness. It's what we do when we connect with God in prayer. And then it moves to meditating on his character and on his word. And this includes worshiping for who he is and looking at the aspects of his character, understanding his internality, understanding his control of all things, his sovereignty and what that means in light of what we see in the world around us. And then moving forward in prayer and wisdom. And so these four areas are really critical for us to understand and go through. I think they're expressed most cohesively and most succinctly in the book of Lamentations, which makes perfect sense. This is a lamentation over, hence the name, Lamentations. Yes, Jeremiah did not hide anything when he wrote the book. And there's not a lot of surprises as you go through the book, except for when you get to chapter three, when you step out, which we'll talk about in just a moment. But the book feels like a lamentation. It's a critical, critical piece of God's word that we need to go through and understand, especially in times like this when we just have voices from all spectrum, all directions telling us how to think and how to feel and how to react and how to process. Exactly, how to go through all these things, but... The Bible walks us through this. does Israel do? What is God noting that they're walking through in the midst of this national tragedy as they're looking to exile, as we look at our own national tragedy? And the first thing I to point out is what we just talked about is mourning. The first thing we see is mourning. In chapter one and Lamentations, and especially verses one through seven, we see this time of mourning. says that in verse two that she weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks. There's this mourn, there's this mourning, but it's not just mourning over the tragedy. It's also mourning over sin. It talks about, because she has none to comfort her because Israel is well aware that they're also in the midst of sin. uh We'll touch on this in just a little bit later in just a moment. But Isaiah actually has that same moment when he comes before God in Isaiah chapter 6 when he encounters God. There's this moment of mourning when he says, woe to me. Yeah, woe to me. I'm a man of unclean lips among a nation of unclean lips. It's not just mourning over the situation that they're in. It's also mourning over not only his own sin, but the sin of his nation. There's this two-pronged view of mourning. It's mourning over the situation, and it's also mourning over why are we in this situation? Why are there tragedies? Yeah. right now we feel the cluster of them. And so we're not gonna, we're not just talking about one or two. We're pausing to look at things that we see now that we should never see. you know, it's startling to watch some of these things and know that our kids and our grandkids, you know, are watching some of these things. And so the cluster of events from, you know, from all kinds of things bring us to the place. And I really love that we stop in the first of the four M's is morning and that's individually and it's corporate. I like that. That's so good. Individual and corporate and when we when we're in Lamentations one and we go down to verse 8 it talks about how Jerusalem sinned grievously and therefore she became filthy and all who honored her despised her and it's again it's just that reminder that that it's not just mourning over tragedy it's mourning over why there is tragedy this stems all the way back to the fall like there is tragedy because there is sin and there is brokenness in the world and we cannot separate that from tragedy but it's not just sin it's just it's something that's out there, it's also sent us something that's in here. The send is inside of us. And so it's the fullness of that recognition. uh Also Jesus and Matthew when he talks about, blessed are those who mourn, within that is the context of those who mourn over their sin. And so that's part of that process of mourning and we've heard that from some voices but haven't seen it completely explained in a way that there's two components to this. There's mourning over what's going on and we gotta take time to do that. That's unplugging from social media, unplugging from the countless voices telling people how to think out to feel. It's actually mourning and grieving over what's going on and then also mourning over the existence of sin itself, sin nationally and sin personally. And that's the first, that's the fullness of what it means and what it looks like to mourn in Scripture. And we'll look at some other examples of that in just a moment. But that that second part that we see in Lamentations is mourning over sin, which we just talked about. and 1 8 8 through 22 for the fullness of that. But meeting with God and meditating before we jump to our next M's, let's talk just for a second. Morning. I think that we just need to acknowledge that this feels uncomfortable because we live in a world that numbs. We don't take time to process, to grieve, to lament. We just numb and move on, numb and move on. Whether that's scrolling or bingeing Netflix or exercise. But whatever it is, we quickly, quickly move on. And can I encourage you to pause and to feel the mourning and the lamenting of the situation. But we do that, we don't stay there. We do need to move on, but can we feel the weight of it, acknowledge how we got in here in the first place, and put ourselves in proper perspective? God has got in, we are not. And I think that when we take those moments and we do agree, but we grieve with hope because we know what's coming. This isn't the end of the story. But I just want to pause and say for many of us, certain tragedies hit us for a moment. And then we move on. Some of us go the other way though. Some of us with the algorithms, the more we dig into whatever tragedy it is, the more the algorithms feed us. the more we dig in to certain tragedies and need all the details and like feast on it, the more the algorithms give us repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. So just be cautious. Yeah, social media is just another example of what you seek, you will find. yeah anyway so that's our first M morning. In meeting with God and meditating on His character and word, we find this in the heart of Lamentations 3, in verse 21, when Jeremiah says, mind and therefore I have hope." And he's calling to mind something that he knows to be true because he's met with God over and over and over again. So he's able to call it to mind and this is so critical, this whole meeting with God portion of this. I have mourned, I have grieved, I've mourned over not what is going on but also over sin itself, national and personal. Now I meet with God. I meet with God and remember all the things that are true from his word. This makes spiritual resources so important that if we don't have a consistent habit of meeting with God, if we don't have a consistent time where we're meeting with God and building up those spiritual resources inside of us, meditating on his word, coming to him in prayer, storing up those truths about God and have that consistent pattern, we are in such trouble when major national events happen or major tragedies happen in our life because we don't have this wealth of spiritual resources to fall back on because we haven't been meeting with God continually. So we don't know to go meet with God in the midst of this. But that's why he starts this off, but this I call to mind. These discussions I've had with God, these truths I know about God and therefore I have hope. And that's when he, in the next verse there is the steadfast love of the Lord. never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. And the verse that everybody knows, they are new every morning. And great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. And then this is quoting, the Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope. And in him, these are prayers that we are to lift up to the Lord to remind ourselves that God, you alone are my portion, not my comfort, not my convenience. and not my peace, my personal peace, it's you are my portion. And therefore I hope in you alone. when I meditate on God's character, when I meditate on his word and remember who he is, like we see in Lamentations here, I'm able to find that what we'd often refer to as a solemn joy in the midst of what we see going on, we don't ignore it, we don't pretend to be joyful and exuberant in the midst of tragedy. but we have a solemn joy of though this lasts for a time, I have my trust placed in a Trinity and I know who my God is and I know that he is my portion. so lamentation shows us not only mourning aspect of it, but it also shows us what it looks like to meet with God and to meditate on his character and his word. And again, it bears repeating. Even though some would say he's going to say it again, I am going to say it If you're not storing yourself up spiritual, you're not storing for yourself spiritual resources on a consistent continual basis, then you don't have the stuff to fall back on when tragedies come and face you in your life or on a national level or whatever it is when traumatic events happen. You don't have the wealth of resources to fall back on because the verses aren't there. The time with God isn't there. And so instead you end up falling on voices that you find in culture to tell you how to feel and what to think and how to move forward. And that's just not how we want to move forward as those who follow after Christ. For some of us as parents and you you have teenagers at home. For some of us helping the next generation navigate through some of this. Can we talk about prayer, you know, our meeting with God and helping them just be honest with their feelings and knowing that the Lord is a safe place to be real. And for some, I spoke with this sweet, sweet young girl. preteen at church and she said I can't get some of these images out of my head and and I said because sweetheart you were never supposed to see those and so in helping your teenager navigate through it pray for them pray that the Lord would help them not focus on that pray that the Lord would even stop seeing that on repeat that he would grace and just encouraging them to be honest with where they are knowing that the Lord is near and Yeah, I think that's. is helpful that you've been navigating with your teens? I mean just looking through the Psalms when it comes to the best place to go of seeing honesty and forthrightness with God boldly. You know we're told in the book of Hebrews, the boldly approach the throne of grace and that we're called to draw near. And to just, yeah, to think of the fullness of what it means to draw near to the Almighty One. We're invited to do that. That's something that doesn't just come into existence in the book of Hebrews, it's all throughout. The Bible as a whole, but we see it in practice in the Psalms. The majority of Psalms are we call them, pre-catory Psalms. They're Psalms that are largely cries for help. uh In the midst of difficulty and times where there's just a lot of honesty with God about the situation that is being faced and the difficulty and the trial that they're going through. And some of those Psalms just end. And in the difficulty and the understanding is God will provide but in that moment, they're just like we don't know what's going to happen, what the next step is or how I'm going to get out of this. But there are so many more that remind us that in the midst of tragedy, in the midst of difficulty, God will provide, God will sustain, God will bring about all that he seeks to accomplish both for his glory and for our good. But there are times when we just feel, we just cry out to God and it just stays there. And that's okay to be honest with God in that moment. But that's, yep. Yep. you're right, David modeled that well for us and the other psalmist modeled that well from my soul. What is going on to wait a second. I know who holds my soul. Yep, that's exactly right. So we have to know that and we have to know where to go. going to those Psalms and I'm taking my own kids to the Psalms and reminding them like, look, this is what's happening, but here are the prayers that are going up to God because they know his character, because they know who their God is, and because they know where they've placed their trust, they can go there with confidence. This is so good. So we talked about the first was morning and just sitting in it for a moment and recognizing our lack and God's holiness and how far this whole situation falls short of that. And then we meet with him. We're honest and we cry out to him and we seek him. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. And we help the others in our lives that are navigating some of this do the same. And then. we get to meditate on his character. So I love that you brought up the Psalms because one of the verses that has sat on my desk for years after going through our own personal tragedy and loss, I love Psalm 62. And so after we just a couple of these, because this is my heart's cry, for God alone, my soul wait. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock, my salvation, my fortress. Therefore, I shall not be shaken. And so leaning into this meditation piece where we know who our God is, even though all around gives way, even though all around I don't have to shake, I am meditating on his character, on his word, on the anchor to my soul. Yeah. So what you said is so important and that's that's really the crux of the last end that we're looking at Which is moving forward in wisdom and prayer and wisdom that we see? Light out in in Lamentations Where we look at chapter 3 verses 25 through 41 But how that starts is exactly what you just said and Lamentations 325 It says the Lord is good to those who wait for him to the soul who seeks him It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. And it says, you know, let him sit alone in silence. And this idea of waiting quietly and the Lord is good to those who wait for him, for the soul who seeks him just picks up exactly what you're talking about in Psalm 62 and is repeated all throughout the Psalms and all throughout the Proverbs. It's one of the reasons why there's a phrase that's used often of wisdom has a pace and it's slow. Because we see that all throughout scripture is is how do you move forward? Well, if it's gonna be in wisdom, then you're gonna move forward slowly because it involves these other things. It involves, especially in the midst of tragedy, it involves mourning. Well, that takes time. And mourning over sin as well, that takes more time. And then meeting with God and meditating on His character and on His word, that takes time. Only then does move forward come into play. and it's moving forward with wisdom, which takes time. And it's not, this isn't just two people on a podcast saying, hey, know, latest psychological trends say that we should move forward slowly. This is the timeless eternal word of God. Well. Everything in my character says no to slow. And I think that's something that we need to pause and talk about just for a second. This isn't overnight, hey, I repeat the right things. I go through this process and I quickly move on. It is moving on with wisdom. It's moving on with hope that is anchored in the person of Jesus Christ. We said on a recent podcast that hope is having confident expectation in the promises of God's word. And I love that because we talked about how the world defines hope very differently. It's not the crossing your fingers. It's relying on the promises. so it's moving forward says what? I am not God. You are God. And you hold all wisdom. And you are a God that is ruling and reigning and one day re- turning to set things right. And so we can't move on quickly as much as everything in us rebels against that. I love that you brought up that point. Wisdom has a pace and it's not fast. Yikes. Yeah, that's correct. And it's just, it takes time to go through a proper process of walking through scripture and walking with God. But let's zoom out a little bit and just kind of see this process at play. It's not just the Book of Lamentations. We actually see this all throughout scripture. And it's really just a quick flyover, so to speak, because we want to spend the heart of our time. about what we see in Lamentations to find, to have a place for you to go as one listening or watching to, where can I go to see a process about a walk through this? And those verses that we point out in Lamentations, that's why that book is there in the Bible, in the midst of national tragedy. That's where you go and that's how to go through it and the themes to pull out from it. And may that be a blessing to you for you to read and pour over and pray through and then walk forward well. But I also want to mention that it's just not, it's not in Lamentations alone. They're mourning over loss and sin. We see all throughout scripture. We see mourning in Deuteronomy 34, 8, after national mourning after loss of Moses, and 1 Samuel 25, 1, after the death of Samuel, all of Israel mourned. We see national mourning. In 2 Samuel 1, 12, there's the death of Saul and Jonathan, all of Israel mourned. And Psalm 137, 1 through 4. we see mourning at a time of exile. So we see this is the by the waters of Babylon Psalm where not only is everybody just mourning, but they have that other component. these other components are in the previous verses as well. They just don't come all succinct altogether. But this other aspect of mourning over sin comes through clearly in Psalm 137, one through four, where there's a recognition of mourning because of tragedy, but also mourning over the existence of sin as the reason for that tragedy. Perhaps the best example that we see of mourning over sin, but then falling back into it is the book of Judges where the people have a cycle. Yes, it's a new judge that reigns for 40 years or so, and there's a time of peace and prosperity. and the people feel like things are okay and so okay that they should begin worshiping other gods because that's comfortable and convenient and then brings about national tragedy and the people then then mourn and they mourn over not only the fact that there's this tragedy that's overcome them but they also mourn over their sin and the existence of the sin. The reason why that's not a great example is because then they keep sinning and God has to raise up another judge. to really create a picture of what it looks like, where our culture is right now, is that everyone does what's right in their own eyes, which is how the book of Judges ends. It's to show us like, hey, here's what happens when that cycle exists. But even within that broken cycle, we see the mourning over a tragedy and the mourning over sin. We see the meeting with God and meditating on his word. We just don't see the moving forward with wisdom. They just, they don't get there. But as those who were on the other side of the cross, we can look back and see, we do know how to move forward with wisdom. But also mourning over sin, we see, we mentioned Isaiah six, where Isaiah, when he's confronted by the presence of God, he's like, woe to me, a man among clean lips, among a nation of unclean lips. It's a recognition of sin and mourning. In Exodus 33, four, they mourn. They mourned at God's declaration that they were a stiff-necked people. It's God telling them you are so rebellious and they and they mourn over over the rebellion and Daniel 9 when when he's he's part of that exile and he's under Nebuchadnezzar and he says we turned away and rebelled he's mourning over over that sin and we mentioned Matthew 5 before the Matthew 5 for within blessed are those who mourn The context is, bless for those who mourn over their sin. And that's a, so we see this perplete throughout scripture, this dual point or dual uh pronged approach to mourning. It's not just mourning over tragedy, it's also the existence and presence of sin that's pervasive throughout. And uh we see the same thing in meeting with and crying out to God in 1 Samuel 12, 10. They cry out to God after mourning their sin knowing who to cry out to the first Kings 847 they turn their heart toward God after captivity and in Judges 3 9 they cry out after mourning their sin again We're just missing moving forward in wisdom and in Daniel 9 20 He confesses the sin of his people of admits and its tragedy and so it's always this recognition of sin and pointing out those those biblical reminders that that this is something that's replete throughout the Bible. And again, not just some sort of advice that we're giving of, here's a four pronged approach or that we think is very helpful. This is how the Bible walks us through this process. And then meditating on his word, Psalm one. I mean, this is a Psalm, such a beautifully written Psalm where it's meditated upon day and night. And then what happens? It produced leads in and out of season and it's just this like a tree planted next to streams of water and it's just such a beautiful picture of what it looks like the results of meditating on God's word and in Joshua 1 8 you know we have we know Joshua 1 9 really well be strong and courageous and Joshua 1 8 says do not let this word of the law do not let this word of God depart from you keep it near you you are called to meditate on his word day and night. This is supposed to be our go-to source for wisdom, for comfort, for guidance. And if it's not, if it's a five minute part of our day, it's just not going to be, it's not gonna create the resources that we need that can support what we need in the here. So as we meditate on the Word of God, we also trust His character. We trust His sovereign plan. We trust that He is God and we aren't. We trust that He is in sovereign control. And even when we don't understand what is happening, we understand His heart. And that allows us to be like you said and have those roots go down and help us be unshakable in times of change. in times of loss and in times of grief. Yeah, and we are, that's actually what we're going to be focusing on on the next podcast as we talk about God's character, about the person, nature, character of God as we look at his attributes in a way that isn't typically looked at. No, you'll hear things and find things that you've never thought of before in relation to the person, nature, and character of God. um It will be a lot more of me, but we always end every podcast with some clear takeaways, some clear things to think about and move forward with as those who are looking to impact the world for Christ. And we want to provide some of those for you. One of those is one we've already mentioned, and it's to really keep in mind in these kinds of times, wisdom has a pace and it's slow. There is so much temptation. to respond to the latest social media posts. There's so much temptation to comment or be, or try to be the first to post about something that you've seen. The first to provide some in-detail commentary on what you've seen, only to find out the situation is much different than you thought it was, or you're missing key pieces of context, ah that if you would have taken this approach of, me sit back and get some wisdom on this. Let me meet with God about this. Let me think about what the word of God calls me to do. And if I miss being the first one to post or comment or the first one to talk to my coworkers or family or peers about this, then that's okay because I'd rather be wise than wrong in relation to the word of God. Oof, that's good. So first takeaway, wisdom has a pace. Unfortunately, it's not fast. Second of all, don't navigate this alone. We weren't created to do this individually. We need each other and we desperately need the church, the body of Christ. to lean into, to walk with together. So if you're not, if you're listening to this, and you don't have a regular place to worship on Sunday mornings, you need this and they need you. We are all part of the body of Christ. So please don't do this alone. Lean in to your network of Christ followers. Yeah, there's only only and always one entity, only one entity that wants you to be alone and isolated. And that would be Satan. That's the demonic realm that desires you to be alone and without a network of those praying for you or giving you counsel. There's only one entity that's going to continue to tell you, the church is an institution of man. The church is an institution, but it was instituted by God. And that's clear throughout all of scripture. So church is God's idea, not man's idea. And we have to be very careful about the way we talk about and think about the bride of Christ. And if we're not plugged in to a community of people, can mourn with and gather with. celebrate with, receive counsel from, we're told to have a wide array of counselors. Then as Matthew Teen, our speakers often says, our faith is in danger. We put ourselves in tremendous danger if we're not taking time with the body of Christ seriously. As a reminder, all the letters of the New Testament, except for a couple written to individual people, they're all written to churches. for a reason, God's people are called together. So that's really important. One more takeaway. What's it going to be? I think this proclaim God is a big one. Let people know where your hope is. All throughout the Psalms we see David, Lord, I will proclaim you in the marketplace. And then in the New Testament, we not only see the great commission in Matthew 28, in addition to the missionary mandate in Acts 1, 4 through 8. We see these calls to declare the goodness of God and as those who claim that God is our Father. those who claim that God has called us his children, those who actually believe we can draw near to the throne of grace and who follow Christ. That needs to be made manifest in the way that we act toward those around us as we're able to share with them, this is tragic. This is egregious. This is exactly the way the world is according to scripture. This is exactly the reason why we need a Savior and that the Bible has declared who that Savior is and who we are called to trust. These are the kinds of things that God says are coming to an end when he brings all evil to an end, when justice is fully administered. The biblical worldview explains everything that's going on and why and why we need rescue. from it and who that rescuer is. So this is the time to proclaim who God is to those around us, to be familiar with who God is to us, be meditating on his word and his character and to be meeting with him consistently. But it's the time to let other people know. that we're not having to explain away like, hey, look at the other way. The Bible is just a bunch of really good pithy sayings that are all like good news and happy feelings. The Bible actually describes the world exactly as we see it. When Jesus says in this world, you'll have much trouble, but take heart, I've overcome the world. He wasn't talking about your car may break down or you may be short a few dollars at the end of the month, or you may get sick or some bad things may happen to your family. These are the kinds of things that he's talking about. In this world, you'll have much trouble. This is what the word of God is actually describing. So we should not be surprised or be caught off guard as those surprised by what we see in the world. What we see even moving toward the book of Revelation, and we don't get too much into that topic. But even as we see things escalate in that range, it's the way that the that the Bible describes the world. It doesn't describe as the world becoming progressively better. It describes the world as continually being a place where false teachers emerge, where people say things that aren't true, but sound and feel good, and where we are easily misled and where tragedy abounds. And at the same time, there's something called the good news of the gospel. And in times of tragedy, are you prepared to give an account of the hope that lies within you? Because our good news, we have a culture that desperately needs to hear some good news right now. And so look for opportunities, pray for opportunities to start spiritual conversation. And let's let Jesus shine through. Let Jesus shine through as the best advice and counsel we can give and that brings us to an end of this podcast. Please go back and listen to beginning of this if you didn't get that process down of how to walk through times of tragedy because that's so critical. It is. It is it's a two-pronged approach to mourning Which is is mourning over tragedy and taking time for that that takes time take time to mourning grief over tragedy But also mourning over sin both the existence of sin or three pronged approach to sin sin itself Sin in our nation and sin within myself. So it's mourning over sin. It's it's meeting with with with God in prayer and coming to him and letting him know, here's what's on my heart. And coming to him and sharing with him, confessing to him, all these things that are components of prayer. It's meditating on his character and word, remembering who God is and how he is according to being driven to worship because of the majesty of who God is. And then when these three things are in place, then it's moving forward in prayer. and wisdom, understanding that wisdom has a pace and it's slow. So I'm making sure that I'm moving forward according to the word of God and making sure that I'm willing to sacrifice not doing something right now to ensure that I'm doing things well according to the word of God. So those are those four hymns. Thanks for listening to this episode of In-N-For. It doesn't have our usual energy, but I think it's an important topic. And Brock, I learned a lot. This was not a fun conversation, but a necessary conversation to have. So thanks for leading us through this, and we'll catch you next time.