The Good Side of Pain #5

Pain isn’t always a bad thing. Pain is positive when it tells us to stop doing what we are doing, like sticking our hand in the fire. Pain is positive when God uses it to shape us into the people He wants us to be. Pain is positive when it teaches us to trust on God. Pain is also positive when it get us to take the focus off ourselves and minister to people who are suffering as well.

As much as we would like to have a purpose for our pain, the reality is that much of the time our pain and suffering will be a mystery. If we are fortunate we will be able to look back on our lives and notice that our suffering helped mature us in our faith, but we have to be ready in case we never get an answer to “WHY?”.

It is when we are left with more questions than answers that we must turn our attention to Jesus and the cross, for at the cross we realize that God also experiences pain and suffering. As we focus on the cross it should also remind us of two great truths that should help us when we experience the pain and hurt of life.

The apostle Paul in Romans 8:31-39 wrote:

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NLT)

1. The Cross of Jesus reminds us the God didn’t spare His Son. (Romans 8:31, 32)

Sometimes we forget that Jesus’ life was not a walk in the park. It was anything but easy. Jesus experienced the death of his father Joseph, the rejection of brothers and sisters, the death of his friend and cousin John the Baptizer, the struggle of temptation, the rejection of his closest friends, and he experienced pain that few have known when he was beaten and whipped and finally nailed to the cross.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, and the Almighty did not shield Jesus from any of it. When bad things happen in our lives, when life doesn’t turn out the way it should, it is not because God who has failed us, but because our understanding of God has. The Cross reminds us that Jesus experienced pain just like we have pain.

2. The Cross of Jesus reminds us of the extent of God’s love. (Romans 8:39)

Only those who are parents can even come close to understanding the love God has for us. God allowed His Son, a part of Himself, to suffer and die for rebels. It is not like we were doing God any favors, we were in rebellion against His authority, and He still sent Jesus.

We are God’s creation, uniquely created to have a relationship with Him. He loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us, in order that the problem of our sin may be dealt with. The cross is a great symbol of God’s love for mankind. When we start to feel like God doesn’t care, all we have to do remember the horror of the cross so that we can be reminded that He does.

Pain can be a valuable part of our lives. God uses pain to create us to be the people He wants us to be and to give us a desire for Him. But the reality of it is that if we want to understand why there is pain or why suffering is part of our lives, we will never find a satisfactory answer. God’s ways are different from our ways and we will never understand everything that He does. When we look at the cross we should remember that God also suffers pain. The cross reminds us of the fact that Jesus experienced pain, suffering and death. The cross also reminds us how far God is willing to go in order to have a relationship with us. The cross of Jesus is evidence that God lives and that He cares for you. When you start doubting God’s love or His existence, look to the Cross and be reminded about the truth of who God is.

The Good Side of Pain #4

We will not always have the answers to the pain that we suffer or the struggles that we are forced to go through. In fact, when we are in the midst of hardship there are no answers that can comfort us or make diminish the pain that we feel. It is in the middle of suffering that we need to have faith. So how can we have faith in the midst of pain? We look to the Cross of Christ.

The Cross needs to be at the very center of our discussion of pain and suffering. The Cross is the greatest symbol of pain that we can have. It is because of the cross that we can know that even in the midst of the greatest tragedy of our lives, God is still there, loving and caring for us. The Cross symbolizes that even God experiences pain.

I am not talking about the pain Jesus suffered when he was crucified. Don’t get me wrong, that was real and immense pain that Christ experienced for us. No, the pain I am talking about is the pain the whole Trinity experienced because of the Cross, the pain God knowingly experienced in order to have a relationship with us.

When God decided to create people with free will He set Himself up for pain. God wanted creatures that would love Him. Love cannot be created, love has to be chosen, and so God created people with the ability to choose love. That also means that God created people who could choose to reject Him and to love themselves or something else. For God to be loved He had to take the chance of being hurt.

The cross symbolizes God’s effort to extend His love to people. The cross should remind us the cost God paid to create people who have the ability to choose accept His love or rejection Him. The cross also symbolizes the hurt God experienced when fellowship amongst Himself was interrupted. The Father, Son, and Spirit had always experienced fellowship. When Jesus died, taking on our sins that fellowship was interrupted, because of the sin Jesus bore He couldn’t have fellowship with God.

Consider Matthew’s account of Jesus’ death:

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,* lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”*

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”*

Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

The Roman officer* and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:45-54; NLT).

I believe this provides evidence that God was hurt when Jesus died. The death of Jesus was much more than Jesus dying physically. As the praise song Here I Am To Worship says; “I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.”

God has not insulated Himself from pain and suffering. He created us with the full knowledge of what it would cost Him, and He still chose to give us life. What this means is that God decided that pain was an acceptable cost for the relationship He wants us to experience with Him.

The Good Side of Pain #3

I have been talking about how pain can be a benefit to us. God uses our suffering to mold us into the people He desires us to be. Remember, one of the things God is doing in this world is creating a people fit for heaven, and so that means He isn’t concerned about our happiness right now as He is concerned about our holiness.

While we can understand that pain has a purpose in our lives and that God is able to redeem our suffering for good purposes many times the reason for our pain will be mysterious to us. There won’t be an answer to the question why. Though I think it is important for us to ask that question. In the book of Psalms we find 64 Psalms of lament. These psalms are poems in which the author begins by crying out to God for understanding. King David begins Psalm 13 with these words; O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?How long will you look the other way? (NLT). We will not always understand the reasons for the pain and suffering in our lives.

Take for example Job. As we read the book of Job it seems that he is a righteous man who gets used as a pawn in a game against Satan and God. Satan believes that Job only worships God because God blesses and protects Job. God says that Job is a man of character and would serve Him regardless of what happens to Job. God allows Satan to test Job. First, God allows Satan to test Job by taking away everything he has, including his sons and daughters. The second test God allows is for Satan to attack Job’s health by covering Job in boils and sores.

The pain that Job suffers does not seem to fit the two reasons why pain is valuable that I mentioned in the first two parts (God uses pain to make us holy and God uses pain to teach us to trust Him). Job’s friends try to explain Job’s suffering by insisting that Job had done something sinful. His suffering, Job’s friends tell him, is God’s punishment for some great secret sin. Through all their accusations Job maintains his innocence, he has done nothing wrong.

Job is as confused as anyone about what is happening. His friends tell him his pain is his fault. Job’s wife tells him to curse God and die. He doesn’t know what to make of the situation. Much of the book of Job deals with Job’s discussion with a few of his friends. It goes back an forth between the friends trying to get Job to confess some great sin and Job insisting that he is being treated unfairly

I think the young arrogant Elihu summarizes Job’s position nicely when he says, You have said it in my hearing. I have heard your very words. You said, “I am pure; I am innocent; I have not sinned. God is picking a quarrel with me, and he considers me to be his enemy” (Job 33:8-10, NLT). While Elihu gives us some insight into what Job was feeling it is interesting to note that it is after his arrogant rant that God reveals Himself.

Here is part of what God says Job:

“Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. “Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right? Are you as strong as God? Can you thunder with a voice like his? All right, put on your glory and splendor, your honor and majesty” (Job 40:7-10, NLT).

The lesson we learn from Job is that we can never understand everything that happens. God has His reasons, and because He is God and we are not, we will never always understand all of the whys.

I know this isn’t intellectually satisfying at times, but it is at this time when faith becomes very important. Sooner or later your world is going to be rocked with pain, if it hasn’t been already. During the suffering and the struggle you will not understand why it is happening. It will seem unfair and unnecessary. You will want to cry out to God and question Him. Those feelings are normal. If we never faced a crisis, a trial, or a doubt then faith would not matter. It is during these critical times in our lives that is essential to know why we can trust God with our future.

We need to trust God, even when the world around us is crumbling. We need to believe in God, even when it would seem easier to believe in no God than a loving Creator who allows pain into the lives of His children. Faith helps us to make the right choices even when we don’t want to. It helps us to live holy lives, even when we want to do anything to numb the pain. It gives us light to push out the darkness. It gives us hope in the face of a bleak future. Faith gives us the reason to worship God when the world tells us to curse God and die.

The Good Side of Pain #2

The reason that pain is such an important part of God’s molding process is because it gets us to redirect our focus. So many of us have our focus on other things besides God. We may be focused on the money we will be making on what we will spend it on. We may be focused on a romantic relationship, and we put in so much effort to make it work. Our focus may be the upcoming football season and winning the state championship. It could be on getting good grades so you can get into a good college. Whenever our focus is on something other than God, we are cheating Him of what He deserves. As long as our lives are good and problems are small and manageable we are not going to change our focus. For many of us, the only way we will learn to focus on God is to have our worlds rocked and our dreams shattered, in a word, Pain.

Dr. Larry Crabb in his book Shattered Dreams wrote; “But we almost always mistake lesser pleasures for this greatest pleasure (an encounter with God) and live our lives chasing after them. We’re not in touch with our appetite for God” (p. 5). God allows pain in our lives to help us get in touch with our desire for God.

If we were honest with ourselves we would admit that many times the only way God could redirect our focus is to take away the thing that distracts us the most. When our dreams shatter or when our lives are turned upside down the result is pain. Having our lives disrupted is not be a pleasant experience, it does hurt. This is the second reason why pain is valuable in our lives. Pain is valuable because it is an opportunity to trust God.

The apostle Paul wrote about a particular pain he suffered in 2 Corinthians 12:6-10. This is what the Apostle wrote:

If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (NLT)

Pain can be valuable in our lives, but only if we learn the lesson that God wants us to learn. So often we miss out on growing in our relationship with God, because we miss the opportunities God has given to us. The next time you go through a trial or some great pain enters your life, ask God this question, “God what is it that You want me to understand or do?” If you do that I am confident that you will make the most of the pain that is in your life.

Though I believe pain can be valuable, I also believe that not every situation will fit neatly into these two reasons. Sometimes we have to realize that we will not understand that pain and suffering that is happening. Think about the grandmother with Alzheimer. How is that disease valuable to her? How can her character be developed when her mind isn’t functioning? How can she focus on God when she can’t even remember the names of her grandchildren? We will not always understand why God allows pain into the lives of people, especially into the lives of His children. It is a mystery that we need to learn to live with.

The Good Side of Pain #1

After losing his wife the late Christian thinker CS Lewis wrote a book entitled A Grief Observed. The Following quote is taken from that book:

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.

C.S. Lewis had a difficult time dealing with his wife’s death. It presented him with a crisis of belief, because the pain was real and immense. But C.S. Lewis’ experience is not any different then the rest of humanities’ experience. Everyday people experience pain and suffering, crying out to God and finding no answer.

Let’s be honest, when tragedy happens, when pain enters our lives, God doesn’t always feel close by. Where was God when the World Trade Center was burning in New York? Where was God when a drunk driver killed your friend? Where was God when your parents got divorced? Where was God when your brother got involved with drugs? Where was God when my uncle got cancer and died?

If we were all powerful like so many people claim God to be, then we would use that power to make the world right and good. When we see a friend of ours hurt and suffering we want to do whatever it takes to fix the situation. We love them, and want their lives to be good. Haven’t we heard that God loves us and wants our lives to be good? If that is the case why does God allow suffering to happen?

I know that pain is not a pleasant experience. It hurts! You are out there thinking, “Thanks for pointing out the obvious. I knew that before I came to this class.” Here is my point, even though pain hurts, it is valuable to our lives. One of the worst Star Trek movies made, is Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier. The only redeeming part of the movie is a line the Captain Kirk has. The crew meets up with Spock’s half-brother, a Vulcan who has discovered how to take away the emotional pain that we all have. Imagine what your life would be like if all the emotional baggage you carry could suddenly be taken away. You simply forget about that time you father yelled at you and called you sissy boy. You forget about the deaths of your grandma and of your dog Spot. You don’t remember the betrayal by your best friend when she stole your boyfriend. The fact that you other kids call you fat vanishes from your mind. Wouldn’t that be great!? This Vulcan offers to take away Kirk’s pain, and the Captain looks at him and says, “No! I need my pain. My pain makes me who I am.” Pain is valuable to our lives because it shapes our character. Though to be honest, it isn’t the pain that shapes our character, what shapes our character are our choices, suffering is the environment in which we have to make those choices.

James 1:2-5 says, Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking (NLT).

I want you to understand something, God’s greatest concern in your life is not your happiness. God does not intend for His people to constantly go through life feeling like they are on the top of the world. Why? Because that type of life does not create the type of people God wants us to be. If God immediately took away our pain and struggles we would never know what it would be like to trust Him. Pain and suffering often forces us to rely on God in ways we would never have before.

The struggles, trials, and pain of life is what develops Holiness in our lives. That is God’s greatest concern in our lives, that we be holy. We are created to be holy not happy. Because happiness is not the goal God uses pain to create us to be holy. Rebecca St. James wrote, “God really wants to mold all of us -- male, female, young, and old -- into what He created us to be.” Pain, trials, and struggles are one way God molds us into what He created us to be.