There is so much we don’t understand about life.  For example, why is it that a really fine Christian may be killed in an auto accident while the drunk who hit him walks away without injury?

I found a verse in the Bible, though, that give us an insight. Here it is: “The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil” (Isaiah 57:1). That means that when a believer dies very suddenly or perhaps at a young age, it may be that God took him home to spare him from some very difficult situation he would have had to face if he had lived longer.

My Dad was a pastor for most of his life.  After he went to be with the Lord, the last church where he was pastor went a different direction than under my Dad’s leadership, and big problems developed. The congregation dwindled drastically. Many a time I prayed, “Thank you, thank you, Lord, for taking him home so that he didn’t have to see this happening.”  It was at that point that I fully understood that God had taken him away “to be spared from evil.”

After believers die, I’m sure they don’t know the sad things that happen on earth, for the Bible tells us God wipes “every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4). The Bible says, “Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death” (Isaiah 57:2)—spared at last from all evil. I’m so glad about that.