Another question that I'm sure at one point or an other we have thought these things. "God why all this pain?" "Why must I endure and suffer all this pain?" "Why must the world suffer all this pain?" "Being a all loving God how can you watch all this pain and not do something?" I know I have thought this things, and I can probably put money on the fact I will probably think it again at some point.
I had one person say to me one time "How can God look into the face of an innocent child and not save them from pain and suffering?" " How could He not rush to help them?" "How could He let such awful things happen to then?" Honestly in that moment I had no idea what to say. When we think about it don't all of us in some way want to scream this from the top of our lungs some times too. "How can you let such evil happen God?"
There are 2 things that I have come to understand a little better in my search to understand disappointment with God and pain. The first thing is that if we have all powerful God and a all loving God to the purest sense, then we have one thing for sure. This one thing is that Love in its most purest form is not coercive. Now if someone would ask me if love was coercive I would obviously say no, but I will have to give credit for this thought and say I heard this idea from a wonderful sermon from Ty Gibson called, Through Tears.
True an utter love is not coercive. True love is not generated by coercive tactics. You can't hold someone at gun point and say "love me!" and suddenly their heart goes a flutter for you. Their heart my flutter for sure out of fear, and they might even say they love you, but they would not Really love you. If you really want someone to truly love you, you have to show love to them and try and draw them by your love. You have to give them freedom right?
If true love requires freedom then there has to be choice. There has to be an option to walk the other way away from love. You could love someone soooo much and long for them to love you and do all these great things for them, but they could still choose to walk away from you. So then love is risky.
This is how Ty writes it Love=Freedom=Risk.
This concept seems so simple but honestly is very deep if you think about it. It blew the lid off my jar of cranky complaints against God. For it helped me see how an All Powerful & LOVING God could have a world like ours, like Ty would say, "On His hands". Pain exists because God will not force anyone to love Him.
This brings me to my other thought. As a medical professional I see a lot of people with pain. Nearly every person I see is suffering from pain and looking to me to help them get better. Now is pain a bad thing? Well.... in some ways yes... but is pain always bad? No. From the physical side of things pain can be a very good thing. It warns the body something is wrong. Pain saves lives many times! If you get a huge gash in your leg and you have no pain you could bleed out and die before you noticed enough to get help.
Honestly, even emotional pain is a warning system that tells us something is wrong and we need help. Even emotional pain can and will kill us from the inside out if we don't get help. Pain in many ways is a gift and an opportunity to get the help we need to survive.
Now looking at pain from a broader perspective gets a little harder. We look at our world and see that their are innocent people being tortured, killed, displace from their homes, starving, living in war zones. If we thought of the world like the human body, this would be warning signs that there is something majorly wrong. This world has a huge infection and needs help. Are you following me? Its true right? Most of us would agree with this.
So an all powerful God made this world and man, but because He is all loving as well, He gave freedom. He was up front and told Adam and Eve there is a disease out there that will kill you. "If you do this one thing you will be infected and die." But He didn't force them to stay in His love, He gave them freedom. True to the all loving God He is. We know the story.... Adam and Eve chose to turn away from God and the horrible infection started for the whole of the human race, Sin.
We are lovers of sin, but God knows this is fatal. But He allowed freedom because He is a God of true love. He restrains Himself from just vaporizing us, because He first loved us. He longs to save us from our condition but He still has to allow freedom. So He made a plan to cure our disease. Jesus!
- John 3:16-17 - " For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" NIV
This is the true message of the Gospel! Why the Gospel is such Good News Right!!! So in some ways we can begin to understand and believe that This all powerful God is truly All Loving and does hurt with everyone of us suffering on this planet, but also doesn't take all pain away because each person has choice. Pain is an indication we need our savior and we live in a war zone. You cannot expect that your life will be peachy in a war zone. We have an infection each one of us. But God does not force anyone to choose love over hate. It is not love if it is by force. So we have ones that chose love and ones that don't. This is war. We suffer and have pain.... but honestly in a way it is a gift because it lets us know something is wrong and we need to turn to Jesus!!!
Paul in his ministry talks about a thorn in his side and that he asks God 3 times to take it away. God tells him this:
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 - " But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." NIV
Isn't that the truth so many times. We are inspired and see the love and power of God when someone else that suffers way more than us witnesses for Jesus and finds ways to show the world Jesus love despite their disability or horrible abuse done to them or losing several loved ones to war. Don't we look at them and realize in the deepest part of our hearts there HAS to be a Loving, powerful, and Amazing God out there if some can endure all that and still witness and do all they do despite all that has happened to them? I know I sure do!
So in my search recently, I have to say and beg to point out that pain is relative. And in many ways pain can be a gift to us and this human race. I know some one reading this may want to punch me for saying that, especially if in the middle of major pain in life, but I challenge you to really think about it. God has the cure! It isn't to remove all of pain in this world it is to surgically remove the cancer eating our souls. It Will be painful, we Will suffer, not because He wants us to. Its about saving us spiritually and eternally from the inside out, not from the outside in. Pain is relative, but doesn't ever have to be in vain. Ultimately Christ suffered most so we could suffer less! Remember, God's grace is sufficient for you too! Take courage!
