Disconnected from the Source

We suffer because we, along with all of humanity, are disconnected from our Creator; the Source of life, love, and all things. As a result we don't function as we were designed to. In a word we are ¹broken.

We also suffer because the rest of the created order is in bondage as a result of our choosing to turn away from God.

Our rebellious distrust of God is the reason for ²pain, suffering, corruption, and death.

God did not (and does not) cause evil or suffering. It is the organic result of our choosing to reject and walk away from Him; to live independent of Him and attempt to make life work without Him - the Source of life, love, and all things. If you turn off the light switch (or unscrew the lightbulb), the light goes out. The one who made the light isn't the problem. 

However, He uses the resulting pain of our disconnection to reveal to us that He is the ultimate Source of love, life, and all things.

Pain does not have the last word regarding evil, God does.

How does God uses evil for good?

 

Suffering can reveal to us how life does not work (as intended) without Him, so we might be drawn back into a loving relationship with him.

He does not (and did not) cause evil itself but he does use it. It becomes a tool to turn us back to Himself and shape us, making us a more perfect bearer of His image i.e. He uses it to make us more like His Son.

God is greater than evil. Evil doesn't win, God does even in and through evil. 

¹For a further discussion on being broken click here.

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Footnotes:

²Pain is the ³loss (or absence) of the good things God has created that we use to ease or mask our pain. Pain is a reminder to turn to God, our ultimate good, and no longer to the good things we use to self comfort.  

The reason these things don't work long term is our need is permanent not temporary - we are designed for infinite love (God's love) not temporary comfort. Created things are temporary. They do not have life in themselves but are sustained by Christ. "... And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together"

³For an extended discussion of this point click here. 

Which comes 1st, grace or humility?

Which occurs first? Our seeing God as the Source of life, love, and all created things more clearly or our being weaned from an ¹inordinate delight in created things? 

Several places in scripture teach that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. This indicates humility comes ²before grace (i.e., the gift of ³God revealing Himself more fully to us) or at least it is the means of experiencing ongoing and increasing grace. 

We must recognize attempts at being our own God - our arrogant independence - do not work long-term, i.e., we must humble ourselves. We must die to live. Death to our attempts to save ourself comes before life. 

God is our greatest happiness. Anything that increases our union with Him is good, even (and maybe especially) pain.

For a discussion on the necessity of humility click here

 

How do we discover God's love in our pain? click here

For a further discussion on the primary role of pain click here

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here.

The greater the evil the greater the opportunity for healing/

grace click here.

For a discussion on the key lesson from the book of Job, click here.

For a discussion on the value of paradox, click here.

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Footnotes:

¹Why do we hold on to and pursue created things so tenaciously? It allows us to temporarily cling to our independence from God. We want the delights of creation without the humility of admitting they are all gifts from our Creator or the necessity of our submission to and dependence on Him. 

²The old saying is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. 

However, you can also salt its oats. 

The choice to not drink is up to the horse. Salting its oats is up to someone else. 

While the choice to humble ourselves precedes our experience of grace, pain is often a means by which we are humbled. We often have no control over painful circumstances, even though we have control over how we respond to them i.e. we can either humble ourselves in response to pain or become defient and rage at God for it.

³it is not because God is hiding that we can't see Him, but because our pride - our tenacious clinging to our independence - blinds us to seeing Him clearly. It takes humility to see and appreciate humility i.e. to see Christ as the humble servant He is. We can't see or grasp what Christ is truly like without humility because He is humble. 

Without humility we project on to God arrogance when He says we should honor and praise Him i.e. we don't see Him correctly. We suppress the truth in our unrighteousness i.e. our unbelief -  and value (worship) created things over our Creator (Rom 1:18-23).

Yes Christ is the Lion of Judah but he is also the Lamb of God who willingly humbled and submitted himself to the Father to be slain... and that for our sake and the Father's glory i.e. he did this for the sake of others.