And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam’s family shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good and pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. – 1 Kings 14:13, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Some years ago my wife and I miscarried twins. The miscarriage occurred very early in the pregnancy, so, sad as we were, we did not suffer the level of sorrow that a late-term miscarriage or, worse, the death of an infant would bring. Still, it was tough, and on more than one occasion I’ve wondered what life would have been like had God allowed the little munchkins to join our family.

Of course, the normal human response to such times is to ask the question, “Why?” Although there are many possible biblical answers to this question, there is one answer that very few people ever consider: death may have been the best thing for the child.

In our human wisdom, we equate the death of a young one with horrible tragedy. But God, whose ways are higher than our ways, and who understands more than we understand, sees it as deliverance from evil. In 1 Kings 14, God, through the prophet Ahijah, cursed the house of the idolatrous Jeroboam. In verses 10 and 11, God (through Ahijah) said:

10 Therefore behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from [him] every male, both bond and free, in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam as a man sweeps away dung, till it is all gone.

11 Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and any who dies in the field the birds of the heavens shall eat. For the Lord has spoken it.

After informing Jeroboam’s wife of the disgraceful deaths her household would face, God then informed her that her little son, Abijah, would die upon her return home. The reason for his early death? God’s mercy.  As 1 Kings 14:13 teaches, God took the young lad to the grave because he was good and pleasing to the Lord, and God wanted to spare him the violence that would soon strike his house.

When an adult dies after long periods of suffering, it’s not hard to comprehend how death, as it replaces earthly suffering with eternal rest, can be welcome. It’s so much harder, however, to think that way when a young one dies. But God knows the suffering to come that we cannot see, and we should trust Him to know when death is the best way to protect those we love from the calamity to come. We just need to remember that as we mourn, the God who loved the deceased enough to protect them from evil also loves us enough to comfort us in our time of sorrow. The trick is to let God work His miracle of comfort, not fight Him off in anger at the loss of the one we love.