THE PROBLEM OF PAIN

Is it God’s fault that life hurts?

Well, No, and Yes.

In the begining man was placed in a perfect environment, with a perfect body, enjoying perfect fellowship with God. There was no pain and no necessity for it. There was no sin in the world or in the life of the first Man and Woman.

However the first temptation brought about the first opportunity for Man to decide to choose to serve self rather than love God. Seizing that opportunity Man allowed sin to enter his life and the world. Thus man fell and brought a curse upon himself the world and all his offspring. This curse was a bondage to sin.

What does that have to do with the pain in my life?

Well when sin came into the world so did a lot of other stuff; death, disease, deterioration, and dissapointment.

Nature including mans body lost its state of perfection, open now to disease and deterioration leading to death. Man lost his perfect fellowship with God now every avenue he pursues in life is frought with dissapointment. We no longer live in a perfect world so in essence things just don’t go right. If it weren’t for the fall of man there would be no “Murphy’s Law”.

When we consider the answer to our original question in this light, the problem of pain cannot truly be blamed on God.

But lets look further into the pain in our lives and see what we come up with.

God’s mercy is abundant and the fact that we departed from him and allowed sin in our lives and the world didn’t stop Him from taking the greatest consequence upon Himself:

“the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…”

“not imputing their trespasses against them…”

“made him who knew no sin to be sin for us….”

Life hurts…does God have an answer?

Jesus Christ, bores our sins on the cross and bearing our sins He also bore the penalty, which is death and the wrath of God.

The ultimate pain in the universe was tasted by God Himself on our behalf.

So now what?

…and He died so that those who live should no longer live for themselve but for Him who died for them and rose again…

Even though Christ died on the cross for our sins we still experience the consequences of sin in the world: disease, dissapointment, deterioration, and death.

However our pain is not without a purpose. When we experience physical pain we immediately know that something is wrong.

We are alerted to the fact that part of our body needs attention.

In the same way pain in our life should wake us up to the fact that all is not well. The world is not perfect and neither are we.

We need to turn to God.

Christian aurthor C.S. Lewis once wrote: “God whispers to us in our pleasures… but shouts to us in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Hag 2:15  The LORD says, “Can’t you see what has happened to you? Before you started to rebuild the Temple,

Hag 2:16  you would go to a pile of grain expecting to find twenty bushels, but there would be only ten. You would go to draw fifty gallons of wine from a vat, but find only twenty.

Hag 2:17  I sent scorching winds and hail to ruin everything you tried to grow, but still you did not repent.

If you have experienced pain in your life and there is no doubt that you have, then you have an opportunity to realize that God is awakening you from a life lived without Him to a life of fellowship with Him where instead of your pain just leading to sorrow and death it leads to repentance, spiritual growth and everlasting life.

2Co 7:9  Now I rejoice, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led to repentance; for you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, without regret; but worldly sorrow produces death.

The problem with pain in the world starts as a consequence to our sin, but God doesn’t leave it there. He uses the pain in this world to grab ahold of our attention and once we have repented and put our faith in Christ He uses pain to grow us to be more like Him.

When I was younger I used to go out into my garage and play my guitar in the dark. Depending on how late in the evening it was there would sometimes be a narrow beam of light that would cut through the darkness of the unlit room. I could see it because it was the only source of light in the otherwise dark garage. It would come through a ventilation hole near the rafters across the room. One time I closed one eye and stood at a point in the garage where the light was directly in my open eye. I could see the sun so vividly and so bright that everything else around me essentially disappeared as my vision adjusted to the brightness of the sun.

The vision intrigued me enough that it made me want to reach the vent in the wall so I could see more. But I was young and short and the hole was almost all the way at the ceiling. Well, my garage is a very messy place so as I drew nearer to the light I would bump into things (speakers, desks, chairs) and I would fall down or hurt myself. But some of the things, I realized, could be used to stand on in order to keep the light in my eyes and continue to reach the highest point on the wall in order to see the sun outside. Without the obstacles in my way I would have had nothing to stand on to keep my focus and keep gaining altitude in order to reach my goal.

“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Colossians 3:2

Spiritual growth works in the same way. If we keep our mind set on things above we will maintain the motivation and the intensity that it takes to seek God.

But here’s the thing: We’re going to have obstacles in our way. Things are going to come up and discourage us and hinder us from reaching the light (just like the equipment in my garage tripped me up or made me stub my toe) but through perseverance and faith we can use those obstacles as leverage to our advantage by learning from mistakes and
surrendering our shortcomings to Christ who loves us and knows us and gave himself up for us. Keep the light of Christ as your focus and the obstacles around you will become less obvious and less distracting. We can use pain and trials as a catalyst for growth.

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.” Romans 5:3

By no means should we seek trouble and trials though. If we are looking for trouble we aren’t focused on Christ. He will raise you up in His timing and through His ways. Our job is to grow in faith and knowledge of the Word so when we do run into trouble we will know how to handle it in such a way to bring glory to God. Pray that God will give you perseverance. Pray that your zeal– your intensity– for Christ would remain strong even when things discourage you.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have over come the world.” John 16:33

The other night I saw a commercial on television that started out by saying something like “There’s great news! Breakthroughs have been made in the medication for pretendinitis (I don’t remember the real disease) and now sufferers only have to take one pill a month, instead of five pills a day, and their symptoms will remain normal!” And I sat there and thought to myself: That really isn’t great news… I don’t have pretendinitis… I don’t have to take any pills… In fact, I’ve never even heard of that disease!

How is that great news? It doesn’t apply to me. Maybe to someone else it would be comforting. But to me…? It’s worthless information.

But here’s the thing: As Christians we witness to a world that is convinced there is nothing wrong with the way they are living. They are entirely comfortable with their drinking and their fornication and their selfish ambitions and all the consequences that come with that sort of lifestyle. So, to them the gospel of salvation—the good news of our redemption and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ—doesn’t seem relevant. They think of it the same as we think of a medical breakthrough for some disease that we don’t have. But the sad truth of it is that they do need Christ and we have a responsibility to not only tell them about the salvation of Jesus Christ but also, when necessary, we have to make them realize, by speaking the truth in love, that they have a real need for Him. That is a difficult burden to bear to a world that lives without shame and is directed by hypocritical notions of tolerance for the intolerable. How are we to reach them?

If the best way to learn something is by watching how it is done then the best way to teach is by doing things correctly. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use words (you most certainly should) but I am saying that sometimes people pick up on little things we do and make conjectures both good and bad. So keep yourself in check.

“In all things [show] yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you” Titus 2: 7-8

Witnessing is not always easy. There are certainly right ways and wrong ways to present the Truth to people. Pray that God will give you opportunities to reach the lost people around you. The people you see everyday. Pray that God will give you the courage and the strength to be bold about the good news of salvation.