THE PERPLEXITY OF PAIN AND LOVE

 

 

In The Hiding Place, amid the suffering of the National Socialist (NAZI) death camp, Corrie Ten Boom and her sister were challenged, “If your God is all-merciful and all-powerful, why doesn’t he stop such suffering?”

 

The sisters were at a loss to answer this ever-perplexing problem. They could merely affirm, from their experience, that God is truly love.

 

Is this answer adequate? Perhaps we can add several philosophical remarks like:

 

·       We cannot understand His ways, or… God has good reasons for allowing humanity to reap the consequences of our evil choices, or….. We must learn the lessons that only evil and suffering can administer, or…. We need to learn that we are inadequate and that God only must be our hope.

 

These answers are all inadequate, even though they are true. I think that it comes back to the answer supplied by the Ten Booms - “We know God, and that He is love.”

 

This answer stretches beyond reason and logic into the realm of experience. It is the experience of a baby in her mother’s arms “knowing” that she is safe there.

 

Is her trust warranted? From her limited experience, yes! Her mother might not always be on time, but she always comes to feed her baby.

 

I had joined a witches’ group on Facebook. They all want to place themselves under the influence and care of a safe and protective god or goddess. However, they can know nothing about this entity accept what the entity reveals. Unfortunately, this entity knows everything about us, especially how to deceive us.

 

Perhaps the Bible has been used by another Entity to sadistically deceive me. I struggled to answer this doubt. Finally, it was resolved by the One who had died the most excruciating death to prove His love for me. This convinced me that God couldn’t be a deceiver or a sadist.

 

Did Jesus really die this horrid death? The skeptic and NT scholar, John Dominic Crossan, claimed:

 

·       “That He was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be.” (Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 2007; 113)

 

·       Both Gerd Ludemann, an atheistic NT critic, and Bart Ehrman, who’s an agnostic, call the crucifixion an “indisputable fact.” (Strobel)

 

This enabled me to affirm that God is love despite my sometimes-painful circumstances. You might respond:

 

·       After all the pain I have experienced, I am unable to believe that God loves me.

 

Truly, there is so much we are incapable of doing for ourselves. However, our Lord perfectly understood this and promised that He is able to provide:

·       Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4–5)

 

What then does it mean to abide in Him? We simply must want Him by being obedient to His Word above all else. You might respond that you have sins that you cannot stop loving. No problem! Just ask and continue to ask Him to change your heart so that He would become #1 in your lives. Ultimately, we get what we want!