THE PROBLEM OF PAIN

 

If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why is there so much suffering? This is a massive question, and can be approached from many different directions. As with all of our “Why did God” questions, we cannot answer this one comprehensively, but perhaps we can offer some meaningful answers.

Why so much suffering? Perhaps we need it. I know that I need suffering. Suffering teaches and grows us. Without it, we tend to take our closest relationships for granted. A wife had faithfully nursed her husband through his nine year struggle against cancer. She explained that he came to truly love her during his ordeal.

It is our suffering and neediness that draws us together. Otherwise, we tend to become jaded, self-satisfied, and arrogant when things are going too well for us.

Perhaps suffering is a necessary gift as long as we carry the corruption of sin and selfishness. Just consider a world where there are no consequences for evil, where we’d live forever without any infirmities? Sometimes, as I look upon my wife as she sleeps, I remind myself that I will not always have her. This thought makes me want to cherish her before death takes one of us away.

God had barred Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and the tree-of-life, after sin had laid claim to them, lest they eat from it and live forever. Yes, this was a curse, but death seems to have been a needful curse. The Apostle Paul explained the need for the Fall and death:

·       Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. (Romans 8:20-23 NLT)

Suffering was both the consequence of human sin and causes us to long for deliverance. It resets our priorities on the things that matter. Therefore, we hunger for the glorious and eternal marriage to our Savior:

·       Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

It is a joy to finally receive what we have longed for. How does suffering accomplish this? It transfers our hope in ourselves to hope in our Savior alone. We are created for love and devotion and not for the self-sufficiency we normally crave. Paul explained that suffering was necessary for him to learn that he couldn’t trust in himself:

·       We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

Without suffering, we would never learn to trust God. It’s just too convenient to trust in ourselves. I would like to believe that I have what it takes to successfully deal with all the challenges. However, such a trust would prevent me from learning to cherish God or even others. Instead, without suffering it the self-reflection it brings, we remain blind, proud, and would aggrandize ourselves as kings often do:

·       The people gave [King Herod] a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!” Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. (Acts 12:22-23 NLT)

Herod’s kingship had enabled him to think that he is a god, diminish others, and to abuse them. This is a common theme. It seems inevitable that whenever Israel’s stomach was full, they would forget about God and conclude that they had what-it-takes to live a fulfilling life, as many of Jesus’ parables indicate:

·       “Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else” (Luke 18:9).

Self-righteousness is always a comparative exercise. We require more of this commodity than others have, and when we have it, we look down on everyone else. However, Jesus concluded the parable:

·       “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

Humility is the soil into which every virtue must sink its roots. Humility is also a matter of truth, of an accurate self-knowledge of our inadequacies and moral failures, and our utter dependence on God. Consequently, if we reject God, we also reject self-knowledge, the knowledge of our true status, our inadequacy and dependence. Without the love and reassurance of our Savior, we flee from this painful knowledge and disdain humility.

Why then the need for suffering? To shake us up and to open our eyes! But how do we justify the great extent of such suffering? When we compare it with eternity, it no longer seems so great:

·       Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. (Romans 8:18 NLT)

Our hope rests in the bosom of eternity. In comparison, our temporary suffering is a small price for the harvest of eternal bliss.