The Problem of Pain

The problem of pain is never one I have struggled with. Something in my head allows for it. Despite the suffering I went through as a child caused directly by the sins of others, despite my suffering caused by my own sin, despite the suffering that my daughter has dealt with that was caused indirectly by the sins of others, despite losing those that I love, He gives me peace that I cannot wrap my mind around. I can find comfort for any questions I have with the answer that The Fall is the reason for suffering on Earth. And, when I read Job for the first time, I marveled at the depth of God's answer in Job 38:

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?"

God offers no answer, but only asserts his authority and makes clear that He owes us no answer. Even if he did give us one, we could not comprehend the one He would give. It creates an awe in my innermost being that I cannot even describe. It is by far my favorite verse in the entire Bible. 

God does not care about our comfort. He cares about eternity. Once we accept that, we can accept the problem of pain. 

But I know that once we start receiving placements, the problem of pain may become harder and harder to just accept. So I have been wrestling with God to solidify the answer in my heart in such a way that I can put words on the peace that He gives me. When people look me in the eye and ask me how I can love a God who would allow these children to suffer, what would I say? 

And I don't think the answer is so easy as most apologetics type answers might be. It requires a walk with God. A long, personal, walk with the Lord. It requires you to know His word and the story of the Bible as a whole. It requires knowing that there is nothing new under the sun. People have asked questions for years. The overarching theme of the Bible is God's redemption of His people, but there are so many secondary themes, one of them being that God cares for our suffering. The writer of Psalm 8:3-5 asks, "What is the son of man that you care for him?" 

It begins with the sinful nature of humans and what Christians refer to as The Fall. That is usually where the answer to our questions begins and ends, but that is the academic answer. If you follow the Bible through Deuteronomy, you see how God continually called the Isrealites back to Him. He punished them because He loved them, because having no repercussions would mean that God is a God who can stand for anything less than the standard He sets. And the man who served Him for all those years in the Wilderness despite his own weaknesses. What does he get in the end? He dies just before he can enter the Promised Land. We venture through Psalm and Ecclesiastes, and we see praise intermingled with psalms of questioning. It is made clear that those can exist side by side. We see how even the prophets struggled against God. Jonah, my goodness, Jonah. What an example of God's infinite patience and mercy. 

And then when we really zoom in and ask, does God care about us. The entire theme of the Bible answers this one question. That God cared so much about us that He personally came down and served us and died for us. 

What if we asked, "Why me? Why do I have to suffer?" If we ask God to prick our hearts to understand the weight of what it meant when Jesus cries out to God in the garden of Gethsemane. How can we expect that Jesus would be allowed to suffer, but we wouldn't be? What is that we do not understand about what happens outside of this physical world? So much. 

Again, I say, God does not care about our comfort. He cares about eternity. 

When we ask about suffering, we ask a shortsighted question. 

When we ask about suffering, it is ultimately important to remember a few things: 

*We are not the first generation to ask this. Even the writers of the Bible asked these questions, many times over. The difference between us and them, is that they could still accept a God who allowed suffering, while we are so wrapped up in ourselves and what we can see and touch, that we refuse to accept any answer that does not fit neatly into our understanding of what we think God owes us.

*We are incapable of wrapping our mind around the answer. 

Who is this God that allows pain on Earth? The same God that loves me. The same God that cares about me. And the same God who, in the end, will wipe away every tear.