Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Jeremiah 15:18a
It’s always helpful at the start of a journey to know where you’re headed! Let me share some of the “roadmap” for our series on ‘WHY’ – the questions people ask.
The well-known artist and songwriter Bill Gaither wrote a song entitled “Songs That Answer Questions”. The first few verses will give you a hint as to what we hope to accomplish as we study the “why” questions:
I don’t want to spend my life writing songs to answer questions that nobody’s even asking anyhow.
When the house is burning to the ground,
there’s just no time to stand around
arranging all the pictures on the wall.
The second verse is the guiding light for our series roadmap:
I don’t want to spend my life preaching sermons that give answers to the questions no one’s asking anywhere.
When there’s so much pain and hurting, there’s no time to be searching for the needles in the haystacks that aren’t there.
Now, I have always thought that God’s answers to life’s questions are better than mine. For that reason I made a commitment this year to help us plunge into finding Godly answers to our most common questions. This is better than looking for spiritual needles in Lectionary haystacks. In a search through the Scriptures for the “why” questions, I found there are 261 of them! The majority of the questions are what people ask. Some of the questions are what God asks of us. I decided to center on the questions that we ask, and the most prevalent one always centers on human pain and suffering – why does God allow it?
One “side road” – In looking over my sermon files from the past 30 years I found that I have preached on the specific topic of “pain and suffering” some 17 times; that’s about 1½%. When I examined the files a little closer for sermons that contain some element of counsel on pain or suffering, I found I’d preached 391 times – nearly 35%. Fully 10 years of sermons on the human problem of pain and suffering! I concluded that we all consider our pain, be it emotional, physical, psychological or spiritual, an important issue!
Let’s begin our journey in “why” with Job; his story forms the basis of the primary human questions of existence – why am I here, and, if God really loves me, why do I hurt?
Even people who do not know the story of Job have heard of him and his patience. The story so often centers around the first chapter, and how this really good man got a raw deal, while God just looked-on and let the Devil destroy the man and his family.
But it really is worth reading the next 36 chapters to watch Job’s friends first attempt to comfort Job...but eventually wind-up missing the mark on the compassion scale. They do more harm than comfort, suggesting that Job was a bad guy, and that’s why bad stuff came his way; but, in reality, Job was a good man in the midst of a really rotten circumstance!
For the first thirty-seven chapters, Job asks the angry question – God, why me? As the 38th chapter begins God finally ends his silence. Job, tell me…when I was mapping out the universe and laying the foundations upon which you now stand…just where were you? God never answered Job’s question the way Job wanted…He simply pointed out that Job didn’t have a clue, and he’d better think twice before parading his goodness in front of his Creator.
After God spoke Job cringed…it works that way! Job had to humble himself and eat a little dust. He apologized to God, and things went better for him afterward.
Now, the reality of trouble and suffering in the human family is not in question here – we all know people who suffer; we have all had our share of suffering. Job even stated the reality that we are born into having trouble as certainly as the sparks fly upward from a fire. [1] The real question we all have is, If God is good, and God is kind…WHY do we suffer? We want to know why God thought it necessary to put us through suffering in this life.
A number of years ago I had pain in my right foot – constant pain. It was the kind of pain that made you wonder if you are descended from Job. The pain was every minute of every day; it was my companion for every step I took in a day. For good measure it throbbed all night. Extra Strength Tylenol by the truckload didn’t help; Cortisone injections didn’t touch it a bit.
Finally the doctor said the “s” word – surgery! I’m not a surgery freak, but by that time I would have allowed him to cut off both arms and do a frontal lobotomy if he said it would help.
The surgery itself was uneventful. My surgeon snipped a nerve or two, shortened a bone here, refashioned a socket there, and I went home to wait for the moment I could walk without pain.
Somehow it never turns out the way the textbook pictures it. Three weeks after surgery I took my first step without the cast; the pin holding my toe together decided to relocate to a different neighborhood. The next week I was back on the operating table. This time he used titanium and super-glue! The toe has held together quite well since then.
However, during the recuperation I had to stay off my feet for several weeks, and in that sedentary lounging I managed to allow my blood to clot in all the wrong places. Silly me! When the clots broke apart (like sparks flying upward!!!) they headed directly for my lungs. Now, I’ve never been kicked in the chest by a mule, but if you have, I’d like to compare notes. The pain was incredible.
Elizabeth came home from work to take the whimpering preacher to the doctor…again!
The pain had subsided a good bit by the time the doctor examined me. He just told me my pain should be in the foot…after all, that’s where the surgical incision was – not in my chest! It was fortunate for me there was a nurse. She said she thought I’d “thrown a clot”. Well…a quick trip to the hospital for x-rays confirmed the nurse’s diagnosis, and they admitted me on the spot.
The emergency had passed…and (supposedly) if the clot didn’t kill me on the spot, it was simply a matter of staying calm, spending a week in the hospital with an IV of rat poison dripping into your arm so it can break-up the clot. Well, frankly, I don’t “stay calm” when I contemplate receiving a bill from a medical facility for a week’s vacation. However, I managed to stay semi-calm, and agreed to stick around.
Unfortunately Thomasville Medical Center had had its share of emergencies that day and the only bed available in the whole hospital was in Romona-Land! You probably don’t know Romona, but I do. Romona Carver was the nurse-in-charge of Intensive Care at TMC. Romona was also the organist at the church I served as pastor. Before the cold sheets of the hospital bed could rob all the warmth from my body, Romona marched through the doorway like a general in charge, and grabbed the IV needle from the nurse who was preparing to invade my blood supply. “Here – I’ll do that.”
Now, it was really good to see a familiar face at that moment; it was especially good to see Romona. As organist I could look over at her during a worship service and she’d know exactly what song my look called-for. I began to tell her that the IV really ought to go in my left arm because I was going to send Elizabeth to get my computer, and the right arm….” Before I could get another word out, my organist dear, sweet quiet-spirited organist shoved a thermometer into my open mouth and growled… “Preacher, you’re in MY house now, just keep your mouth closed.” She turned into Nurse Ratchet!
Trouble got my attention! It got Job’s attention. I believe that is one of the benefits of trouble and suffering…it gets your attention. There is value in suffering.
But, to tell you the truth there are only three things I can say about your question – why do we suffer?
#1. It is a fair question;
#2. it is Job’s question.
#3. I don’t know.
There is a lot of stuff offered by preachers, philosophers and skeptics to try to make us believe that somebody on planet earth has understood God. But it is conjecture only!
• Some say God punishes sin and that’s why we suffer. Now, it is true that God punishes sin, but you cannot explain children being killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad that way.
• Some say we must suffer to collect better karma than we had in our last incarnation.
• Some say we suffer because we have no faith, or God is just that mean. You can choose that if you will, but God never said that.
God didn’t answer Job; not even in the face of the oldest test case on record. God simply informed the man that a mortal could not understand. And therein lays our frustration and the only answer we have – neither can we understand God’s ways. Some suffering is in God’s hands only, and we will not know why until we see him.
So, Preacher, How am I supposed to live with that?
So, Preacher, where does that leave us in all our pain and suffering? How can we remain somewhat sane in the face of the brutality of man with men, and natural disasters and children who die or are abused? Who can accept such a thing? The same answers – it’s a fair question, and I don’t know.
The philosopher said, Preacher, tell me something of your convictions, I have doubts enough of my own. I couldn’t agree more. And so, because I am not smarter than Job or God, I will leave you the way God left Job…
• We were not there when God created this universe.
• We do not understand the most infinitesimal fraction of the depth and breadth of who God is, and what He has done.
• And if we cannot understand even the basics of the creation in which we live, how can we possibly begin to understand the motives and purposes of the Creator who is greater than His creation?
But he has told us Who He is in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to us and said, Do you want to know the father? Look at me…follow me…love me…commit your life to me. For in me dwells all of what is in the Father; you see me, you know Him. [2]
Does That Make It All Right?
Wow! Do you mean that if I put my faith in Jesus Christ I expect all the suffering I’ve ever done, whether self-inflicted and deserved, or undeserved, to vanish. That’s not the point. Jesus is not a self-help vending machine….put in a prayer – out pops a packaged healing for what-ails-you!
Rather, this is a matter of the created being “getting-in-step” with the Creator, so that He can direct your path away from sin and bring you close to Him.
Your suffering is just that – your suffering. It has a purpose, and God may or may not reveal that purpose to you in this life. All we can really say about it is that you have a choice to do one of two things:
• You can attempt to figure suffering out; in which case you will wind up in the madness of Job, and at odds with God…or…
• You can do what Job finally did – submit. You can trust God’s grace and know that He is God.
In choosing to trust God you will not eliminate suffering from your life altogether; it is too much a part of the human condition. However, the Bible says that the end of Job’s days were better than the beginning. Whether that be in this life, or the next, it is not bad to trust the voice out of the whirlwind! I choose His grace; I choose to love Him and cling to Him…tho’ He slay me!
But either way, know this, that no matter how strong or weak your faith may be, it is His grace that will give you peace. Paul found that out. Paul had pain that was like a sharp thorn. He prayed for a long time that God would take it away. Paul was a great man of faith; God chose to let him keep the pain. Instead God whispered to Paul’s heart these words:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” [3]
God may choose to heal your pain, relationship, bankruptcy, cancer; He may choose to give you Paul’s strength through your pain. Either way, His choice will be better than your choice!
Some Possibilities If He Chooses Pain for You
#1. Don’t run from the pain…embrace it. It is God’s reminder, His still, small voice of leading, loving you. Remember you have not yet been hung on a cross, nails driven through your hands and feet, and a crown of thorns jammed-down on your head. Neither are you paying for the weight of the sins of the whole world. Neither are you innocent of sin. Jesus was all of that. Your pain is teaching you Christlikeness. Don’t run from it.
#2. Don’t despise it. Pain is one of the few warning systems the body has to help it heal. Dr. Paul Brand is one of the world’s foremost experts on leprosy. He describes how "leprosy patients lose their fingers and toes, not because the disease can cause decay, but precisely because they lack pain sensations. Nothing warns them when water is too hot or a hammer handle is splintered. Accidental self-abuse destroys their bodies." [4]
#3. Learn to love in the presence of pain. C.S. Lewis had a horrible childhood; his mother died when he was 9, and his father had no love for him. He saw the cruelty and brutality of World War I firsthand; he also received extensive physical wounds on the battlefield.
He rejected any idea of a loving God, and buried himself in books and scholarly pursuits of academia; he insulated himself from the possibilities of love and relationships. He reasoned that a God who allowed that kind of pain cannot be welcomed into human life. In excluding the God he couldn’t see, he isolated himself from the humans around him he could have seen.
Then he met Joy Gresham…and he learned how to be loved, and to love. It wasn’t easy. Joy died after an agonizing bout with cancer just a short time after they married. The movie which chronicles their life together ends with Lewis summing up the experience of love in the midst of pain:
Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more; only the life I live. Twice in that life I have been given the choice, as a boy, and as a man. The boy chose safety; the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then; that is the deal. [5]
Pain and trouble are ours, Job tells us, as assuredly as the sparks fly upward. But the pain now is part of the happiness God has waiting for us. He said that is the deal!
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things [all the pain] have passed away.” Revelation 21:4 (NRSVA)
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ENDNOTES
1] Job 5:7
2] Colossians 2:9
3] 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NRSV)
4] Philip Yancey in "Pain: The Tool of the Wounded Surgeon," Christianity Today, March 24, 1978
5] Shadowlands, Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger ©1993 Savoy Pictures, Inc. @ 2:06:00 (Elapsed time 36 sec)
