No shortcuts to maturity

Pain is a ¹necessary part of ²growth. We either experience it through... 

³Self-denial and submission to God's ⁴directives - necessary because of our brokenness and inclination towards ⁵rebellions distrust of God.

or 

As a result of living in a broken world among others who are also broken from their rebellion to God. 

There is no way around pain. It comes to us through the offenses of others in this broken world. There are also no shortcuts to being weaned from our own ⁶brokenness and the pain it causes.

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation (The meaning of tribulation in the original Greek - persecution, affliction, distress, pressure). But take heart (i.e. do not be fearful or lose hope); ⁷I have overcome the world.” - Jesus in John 16:33

The good news is God knows and understands our pain because Christ stepped into our broken world and suffered far more than we ever will - and for our benefit. 

And not only so but he also uses our pain and struggles for our good. In knowing this, we find peace - i.e. "...in me you may have peace." 

Though pain continues in this life, it no longer disturbs us in the way it did before. We now see how God uses it for a good purpose if we love and trust Him.

In Christ, we therefore live with ⁷hope in the midst of pain, not despair, anxiety or fear.

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.

For a discussion on the necessity of humility click here

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Footnotes:

¹Pain reminds us that we were not designed to operate without God. The more we come to see and understand this the more we look to God for true life, and not to creation with all it's "creature comforts."

Coming to see and know God as the true source of life, love, and all things is at the heart of our transformation - growth. Pain often is a - if not the - primary means  by which this occurs if we receive it by faith as such, i.e. we do not become angered or embittered by our suffering, pain, or struggles but welcome them as our friends to help us grow deeper roots into God and find Him more and more as our true life and joy.

"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence..." Jas 1:2-3 JB Phillips

²We are so blinded by our selfishness we will never see how deep it runs until we are pressed beyond our ability to handle the pain it causes.

³God actually calls us to go through pain to advance us spiritually. We don't think of self-denial as a form of pain. However, self-denial is a call to turn away from those things we use to find comfort in and ease our pain, so we might pursue God as our comfort.

To expand on this, Christ says we are to take up our cross and follow him. The cross is a symbol of pain and death. Christ is calling us to take on and embrace pain in the same way He did in order to follow him. At first, we might think this is insane. Why would God call us to willingly take on and embrace pain when we spend all our lives trying to avoid it!?

When the world asks how can God be good and just, when He does not relieve all the pain and suffering in the world (including our own), it reveals the depth of our rebellion towards God. Pain is the organic fruit of our rebellious distrust and independence from God, not as deliberate punishment by some angry supernatural being. It only remains to wean us away from inappropriate dependence on the creation and turn us to dependence on the Creator for true life where it belongs and where we will flourish and experience life most. 

If we allow pain to do this, we will be saved in, by, and through our pain and suffering, i.e. It remains for the exact opposite of what we assume. God ultimately uses it to advance us spiritually, not harm us. But only if we receive it as from His hand for our advancement, not our harm. If we believe it is only for our harm we will not gain from it the good God intends.

⁴The primary directive is that we love God with all that we have and are and our neighbor as ourselves.

⁵Pursuit of something other than God for life is at the heart of our rebellion. This says these other things are more important or valuable than God i.e. they become our God. 

⁶The heart of our brokenness - selfishness - is our rebellious commitment to being our own god. We put greater trust in ourselves into gaining what is best than trusting God to do what is best for us. This is due to not believing God is who he claims to be... the Source of life, love, and all things. The result is the pursuit of creation itself and making it our god. 

How's that working for you so far? 

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." - Rom1:18-23

Of course, today we do not worship birds, animals, and creeping things as they did back when Paul penned this. But these are representatives of creation. We naturally ascribe to created things - i.e. anything from our earthly existence - the value and glory that can only be ascribed to God. That is the application and underlying truth of this passage for us today, not the primitive worship of animals.

⁷How did Christ overcome the world? He embraced the world's pain and suffering (including ours) and allowed it to kill him so that we might not have to remain in pain and die. Then He overcame that pain by resurrecting so that we might also resurrect one day if we put our trust in Him.  

Pain and death do not have the final word, life does in and through Christ demonstrated and confirmed by his resurrection. Because he resurrected, we will also in him. This is our hope in our pain.

The greatest lesson from Job?

Why is the book of Job in the Bible? After all, it appears God never answers Jobs' most pressing question of why he ⁵suffered. At least not directly. So what is the point of the book?

Could it be that Job encountered and wrestled with all his pain so his story could be told ¹primarily for the benefit of others? Is God, through Job's example, seeking to reveal to the rest of us (as well as to Job) how deeply our distrust of God runs when things are hard; how distrust is our most basic problem and trust is our greatest need, and not deliverance from pain and suffering? This is where the book of Job eventually takes us through Job's example i.e., that God is God, not you or I. He knows all things, and what is best, we do not. He is worthy of our total trust and ultimately calls the shots, not us.

Not exactly what we want to hear when we are in the throes of great anguish, is it? 

When we think we're wise, we realize we still know very little. At least this is what Job finally recognized. It is a humbling process to realize that God is God and we aren't. That he knows what is best, and we don't. This is the reversal of the lie Adam bought into. That we can be our own god and don't need God for life - when in fact we are dependent on God for our very breath as well as everything else. This is a hard pill to swallow for most. 

Revealing to us our deeply buried distrust may be the greatest lesson and key takeaway God seeks to reveal through Job to anyone willing to listen. 

Job is us, and we are Job. When we are in our deepest pain and wrestling with our greatest doubts, we are all the same. When pressed beyond our limits, we discover we don't trust God's wisdom, power, or goodness. 

Do we see any indication elsewhere in scripture that distrust - not pain - might be our biggest issue?

Paul cites Job

We get a hint of this when Paul cites Job at the end of Romans 11 in verses 34-36. 

By Paul using key excerpts from Job, we may be getting further indication of a primary purpose of why Job went through all his suffering - maybe the main purpose.

Paul had just spent 3 entire chapters (Rom 9-11) addressing the thorny issue of ²Israel's national turning away from and rejection of their promised Messiah. What an absolute tragedy and apparent failure this must have seemed to many within and outside of Israel. Had God failed His promise to ⁷deliver Israel from their Roman oppressors? 

Interestingly, Paul ends these 3 chapters (chapters 9-11) in Romans, citing the same key truths ²Job came to realize in order to address what was a significant area of doubt for national Israel at that time.

The seeming failure of God to deliver Israel from their physical and political slavery was a major stumbling block to Israel's embracing Christ (even after His resurrection, his disciples still wondered when Christ would set up his earthly kingdom to ⁶free Israel from Rome's oppressive rule. They wanted physical deliverance, more than spiritual deliverance. But God had a better and more necessary plan. 

Paul uses the same truths revealed to Job to address national Israel's distrust and why God can and should be trusted. In doing so, Paul seeks to show how God - through Jobs' suffering and doubt then and in Israel's doubt and rejection of Christ at the time of his letter - is in total control and knows exactly what he was doing when it appears otherwise, i.e. we all are called to trust God when circumstances seem to say just the opposite i.e. that God cares about us, knows what He's doing even when there is *no relief from our pain. Our pain may actually be an indication that God is working most on our behalf.

If not for Job's suffering being recorded along with the key lessons Job learned, Paul would not have Job's example to point to when we (or Israel) wrestle with our own suffering and doubts about God. Observing Job's suffering (and ultimately his turning back to God in deeper trust) is for all our benefit, not just Job's. 

What are the key takeaways from Job that Paul summarizes at the end of Rom 11?

“For

* who (Job 15:8) has known the mind of the Lord, or

* who (Job 36:22-23) has been his counselor?” “Or

* who (Job 35:7; 41:11) has given a gift to God that he might be repaid?”

For from him, through him, and to him are all things (even the hard things). To him be glory forever. Amen. - Rom 11:34‭-‬36

The following are the passages from Job that Paul appears to be pointing back to by asking these 3 questions at the end of Romans 11 regarding God:

* "Have you listened in (on) the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself?" - Job 15:8 i.e., is your wisdom true and the only wisdom there is? Who might have greater wisdom than you, a mere creature? How about the all-wise, all-powerful, everywhere present Creator!?

* "Behold, God is exalted in his power; who is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed for him his way, or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’?"  - Job 36:22‭-‬23. God alone rightly determines what is good and evil because He alone created all things, knows all things, and sustains all things, including your very breath and existence. 

* "If you are righteous, what do you give to him? Or what does he receive from your hand? " - Job 35:7.‭ "Who has first given to me (God), that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine." - Job 41:11 ESV i.e. you can't give to me what I already have and rightfully own.

The answer to each rhetorical "who" Paul asks is no one except God, i.e., God is God and knows what is best, i.e., only He is all-wise. By definition, this is foundational to what it means to be God. He also doesn't owe Job - or you and me - anything, including an explanation of why He does what he does the way he does it (hence God never directly answers Job's most pressing questions). 

Through Job, God is telling us (and Paul is reminding Israel via Job) that only He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly just (righteous) in all He does. It was Job's, Israel's, and our own arrogance that demanded God tell him (us) more. 

To ask God why we suffer is completely legitimate. He invites us to pour out our cares to Him. But to demand an explanation is not. He does not hear our demands any more than he heard Job's or Israel's (give us a sign i.e. proof you are the Messiah) at the time of Christ. God tells us what we need to hear, not what we demand to hear - or think we should. Mere creatures can certainly ask God questions, but can not legitimately demand anything from the Creator. 

This is not the answer we want or ³like. It grates on us and exposes our deep-seated distrust of God and arrogant trust in our own understanding - wisdom - logic. It exposes how our primary objective is relief, not truth. 

For us to acknowledge the full extent of our distrust requires humility... not only for Job but for us as well. Job is simply a primary example and illustration of this fundamental problem we ⁴all have - a deep-seated,  ongoing, and arrogant distrust of the only true, infinite, and all-wise God. 

We think we know better than the all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving God regarding what is best for us. When we consider all it takes and means to be God, it exposes how absurd this notion is and how arrogant and rebellious we truly are.

This is a central issue - and truth - addressed not only in Job but throughout scripture. Job happens to be the most dramatic recorded example of this. 

We see this distrust at the very outset of humanity's existence with the first lie we bought into in Eden. The lie that we can be our own god - i.e. all-wise and no longer in need of the one true God. That we can determine what is right and wrong without God's input or direction. Exposing this arrogant distrust and calling us to turn from it is the key takeaway from the book of Job.

What about our suffering? How should we handle it?

Not only is it true that Job and all he suffered isn't just about Job. The lessons he learned aren't only for his benefit, but for all of ours. In Job, we observe our own struggles and doubts in suffering and the overall issue we all wrestle with...distrust.

What else can we learn from Job's example? 

As Job is an example to us of how to trust God in suffering, we are reminded that we too can be an example of humility and trust in God for others who observe us in our suffering, the same way we observed Job in his.

By observing how God addressed Job and how Job ultimately responded, we are given an example of humility and trust that we too, can be for others in the face of our own suffering. This may also be a primary reason any of us suffer i.e. for others to see how we trust God in spite of it. 

Those closest to us may tell us to curse God and die, as Job's wife did. But our trust in God says to others that God is life itself and more important than relief from suffering. 

Our trust and submission to God in our suffering says to them He is also worthy of their trust. It is a call to those who observe our trust in God during our greatest pain that they also can trust Him in their own suffering.

Do we whine and complain in our suffering or do we submit to God, thereby displaying to others God is worthy of our trust and therefore also worthy of theirs?   

God doesn't candy coat or hide Jobs' anguish and struggle but lays it out for everyone willing to see. In the end, after all of Job's complaining and questioning of God's fairness and justice, he shows how Job, to his credit, ultimately 

humbled himself before God and put his full trust in Him again. 

Job's trust in God made a major leap forward through his suffering, and because it was recorded, we were allowed to observe it and all Job went through to get there. 

Usually, we only see how our immediate, temporary, and personal suffering affects us (as I suspect Job did also), not how our faithful handling of suffering can be an example and potentially have a positive eternal effect on others. In our suffering, we have an opportunity to show how, ultimately, the best, wisest, and most perfect perspective belongs to God, not us. Therefore, He is worthy of our trust and worthy of yours also.

Through our suffering, we too can be an example for others (as Job is for us) on why they should also trust God. 

Our acting accordingly in our suffering can be a key example of trust for others to consider in the same way we do Jobs' example. Our suffering is an opportunity to show others that God is life Himself and trustworthy. Our trust is an encouragement and invitation for them to trust Him also. 

And Job illustrates this even more than any human (outside of Christ). Was this not also what Christ did? Is Job actually a picture of Christ in a most significant way?

Jesus Christ himself is the ultimate example of faithfulness in the face of the greatest suffering. 

Christ trusted the Father perfectly (even though he wrestled with the prospect of impending pain while in Gethsemane - "if possible take this cup from me" - and also on the cross - "why have you forsaken me"). And he did so as an example for us of perfect trust in the face of ultimate suffering far greater than anything Job, you, or I will ever go through. He did this to restore us to God, not just as an example of faith.

Christ is the ultimate ⁴example of trust in the face of overwhelming pain and suffering. In so doing, He invites us to trust His Father as He did, demonstrating the Father's trustworthiness.

Two potential effects Christ's suffering has on us.

*Humility - as we too come to trust God, as exemplified by Job and ultimately by Christ.

Or

*Anger, fear, anxiety - because Christ's example of complete trust rebukes us and exposes our distrust when we face our own suffering. When slapped in the face, Christ turned the other cheek, prayed for his enemies, and even asked the Father to forgive them for killing him in the most painful way. Christ trusted the Father when and where we do not. 

To realize all this can either be upsetting or humbling. It all comes down to what we believe and who we trust to best "have our backs," God or ourselves.

In addition to all this, Christ offers to legally assign His trust of the Father to us and gives us credit for it as if it was our own. If we accept His offer we are fully received and embraced by God and can now be treated by the Father as if we are perfectly trusting when we are still deeply distrusting.

For a discussion on why God allows evil and suffering to continue, click here.

For a discussion on how our suffering can aid us in seeing God's love better click here.
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¹At least our immediate pain. Christ took on the painful consequences of our rebellious distrust so that we ultimately will be delivered from it for all eternity. 

⁴Starting with Adam.

¹That's not to say Job didn't benefit from his suffering, but he was (and we are) never given a direct answer or explanation for why God allowed him to go through all he did (this article is an attempt to explain why). God exposes Job's distrust and how Job turned from it and back to God in the end. This is why addressing distrust appears to be the main point of the book. 

² Isn't the primary purpose of Job to illustrate the importance of faith when faced with the most difficult questions of life and possibly this very specific and difficult question of national Israel's falling away from their messiah? This would certainly explain why God never directly answers Jobs' questions. From the conclusion of the book, we get a clear indication God had other reasons for including it as part of His divinely inspired writ.

³No more than Israel liked hearing that Christ came to deliver them spiritually and not circumstantially i.e. physically or politically.

⁴and because of His trust in the face of the greatest suffering of any man, we are invited to come to him without hesitation when faced with our own suffering. 

⁵and why Job went through all he did i.e. the loss of everything of greatest earthly importance except his wife. And ironically the one person that we hope would be a support in our time of greatest need was just the opposite. She encouraged him to abandon God.

⁶The irony is that Christ did deliver Israel but from spiritual oppression, not circumstantial oppression. Because Israel was looking for the wrong kind of deliverance, they missed the most important kind of deliverance - i.e. the spiritual and eternal kind. A need they never recognized or acknowledged.   

⁷The primary point Paul was making in Romans 9 through 11 was God had not failed but in fact did bring deliverance not only to them but all nations through Israel by Christ their Messiah. Paul was explaining how the promised deliverance was spiritual. Which ultimately would result in His physical reign and deliverance for all who place their trust in Him - but not until eternity. Paul cites Job at the end of these three chapters to drive this home. 

The bottom line? God knows exactly what He's doing and always has. For us individually, for Israel, and for the world as a whole. His ways are higher (greater and wiser) than ours! He calls us through Job to trust Him in the same way Job finally did!

Unbelief diminishs us

Because of our rebellious distrust of God and our subtle but passionate desire to make life work without him, we are no longer in a relationship with Him (as we were meant to be) and experiencing His infinite love (the necessary spiritual nourishment we were created and designed to have) with all the delight, bliss, and strength that comes from being connected to Him. As a result, we are stunted in our abilities and ¹never develop to our full God given potential. We are ¹far less than we were created to be. 

This is true not only spiritually and emotionally, but physically. As our health declines with age, we experience disease and eventually die. None of this was part of our original design. 

As well, our senses and abilities are only a fraction of what they were meant to be and we have the potential for (and will one day be if we are in Christ. In Christ, all of this will one day ultimately be reversed and eliminated).

If we are not restored to God, our diminishing abilities and the negative results will continue beyond our present existence and only increase. We will become even more fragmented, diminished and entrenched in the negative dispositions we now have and display, e.g. frustration, anger, fear, anxiety, depression, indifference to or even hatred of God, etc. 

Without connection and union with the Source of love and life we are like spiritual and emotional black holes collapsing in on ourselves from the void left by God's absence. We will only increase in our sense of emptiness. This will become even more acute over time with no chance of relief.

In our current existence we at least experience occasional temporary relief through the use of the various gifts that God gives us - both internal and external - but always with a constant search and hope for more (this drives all our actions when we are not connected and in union with God). 

In our next existence, without our Creator or access to His creation, we will be fully given over to our own devices and have no such experience or hope of love. We will have no access to the external gifts or the ability to exercise the internal ones, but only an perpetual longing and thirst for love - now masked by the use of God's gifts. This will be our hell.

So what is our problem? 

In this life, we try to build our sense of identity, meaning, purpose, and value trhrough ²everything but God. He is not our focus, His creation is - with access to and use of all the gifts this life brings us. 

However, created things are finite. We were created for the infinite.

If we refuse God's offer (again our choice) to restore us back to Him and our ³true identity, we will go into eternity continuing on this current trajectory. The difference is we won't have all the resources, blessings, and gifts we now enjoy and use to maintain our independence from God. 

Absent God, we attempt to use all things to maintain our sense of identity, meaning, value, and purpose. We are like rebellious children using all the good things our parents give us to avoid the very ones who gave them to us i.e. our parents.

If we return to God and abandon our rebellious attempts to make life work without Him, we will be restored to the true purpose of our existence, and experience our greatest potential, fulfillment, and the delight He longs to give us (you) in Him. Will you return?

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price." - Rev 22:17

Are we truly rebels against God? For more click here.

Does God love rebels? Click here and find out. 

For a further discussion on why hell is our choice click here.
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¹Not unlike a malnourished child genetically encoded to be a genius or an exceptional athlete who never developed to their full potential. As a result, they developed with less than average intelligence or become wheelchair-bound because they never received the proper nourishment they needed and were designed to have.

²We use all the good gifts of God - meant to show us his love - to maintain our independence from God. Not unlike a rebellious child using the good things his parent provides to betray his parents.

³His beloved image bearers who are designed to partake in the community of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit - and all the delight that comes with and in it - in the same way they do (because we are like Him).

Why is there pain, suffering and evil?

Whether consciously or not we have ²all turned away from God, the source of love, life, and all things.

God told us the day we turned away and no longer followed his wise and loving direction, we would die... 

*physically - ¹we would return to the dust we came from. And 

*spiritually - we no longer possess the breath (Spirit) of God, therefore we no longer experience the immediate and direct love, life, and presence of God. Without God's life (breath-Spirit) we are no longer able to commune with God - who is Spirit. 

This warning was not a caution God gave out of retaliation but a warning out of His care and desire for our best.

Yet sadly and foolishly we still turned away from God to created things - i.e. to our innate abilities, each other, and anything else in creation - in an attempt to make life work without God (life we already had in Him but turned away from). Why?  Because we believed we could find life on our own, apart from God - who is life and gives life to all things. 

We also believed we could find life in and through creation (which consists of both ⁹internal and external gifts). 

As a result, we continue to this day trying to restore our sense of meaning, purpose, and love apart from God - i.e. the life we lost by turning away from God, its source - in and through anything other than Him. At best God is an afterthought instead of our focus, if he's thought of it all. 

How do we know we have turned? In at least two ways.

1. We ³do not acknowledge all that we are and have comes from God and act accordingly i.e. we act as if God is either irrelevant or doesn't exist (though we might acknowledge or call out to Him as a last resort when we are in our greatest pain and darkness moments). We act as if he is not the Creator and Sustainer of all things. 

We assume everything is either an accident of time plus chance (the evolutionary model) or we simply ignore the evidence all around us that created things must come from a Creator who has a purpose and design for all things i.e. we rarely if ever give a thought to why He created in the first place.

2. We operate predominantly out of fear, not trust in God i.e. If we truly believed God was as good, wise, and powerful as he claimed, we would not be afraid to trust him. As it is *we wrestle with trusting him all the time (and go as far as blaming Him for our self-imposed pain). 

(*For a discussion on how faith is hard work click here when you have finished reading)

Our difficulty trusting God is often not evident until we go through extremely challenging circumstances. When we face our greatest pain is when we have our greatest doubts about God's goodness, love, wisdom, and power e.g.  "If you really loved me God why would you let this happen?" (not unlike what Christ went through in the garden of Gethsemane, yet without sin (i.e. distrust). If faced with extreme challenges few, if any of us would approach our pain as Christ did when he said, "not my will but yours be done." - Christ did what Adam - and we - failed to do. He remained faithful in the face of extreme adversity, even unto death. Unlike Christ few of us suffer to the point of dying, much less by being tortured).

As a result of our turning from God, everyone and everything is now broken, marred, and distorted. Nothing operates according to its original good design - how can it be if we are no longer fully plugged into the very source of life? This is like a sailboat without the wind or ocean. We are now only an empty shell of our former selves and God's intended design (though he is constantly working to restore us... more than not through our pain).

Because of this, the rest of Creation - by no choice of its own - is also in bondage, subject to decay, disease, and death, and awaiting those who trust Christ to be completely ⁴freed and in full union (glorified) with God - the Source of life, love, and all things.  

We and everything else is now broken. Broken things result in more things breaking, causing ongoing and increased pain; spiritually, emotionally, and physically (pain within - fear, anxiety as well as adverse health i.e. disease and eventual death...and pain without, through adverse circumstances i.e. the thorns and thistles of living in a broken world).

Pain is for our good!?

Ironically and incredibly, suffering entering the world was (and is) a ⁵good thing! How?! It would become our teacher from then on and be used by God as a reminder that life without God doesn't work as God intended. Pain is the potential means of humbling us, resulting in our returning to Him (if and when we pay attention and let it).

An old expression says you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink; however, there is a corollary... you can salt its oats. Pain is how God salts our oats.

Prolonged and deep pain can reveal to us the inadequacy of creation to give us what we most need in those times of overwhelming pain and help us see that created things alone (including other image bearers) can not sustain us spiritually and emotionally at the deepest and most important level. Nor can it prevent us from the ultimate loss and suffering of dying (no matter how hard we seek to prolong life).

Pain can be the means of our seeing that only an infinitely loving God can satisfy our deepest thirst and hunger (It is with good reason that Christ called himself the bread of life and the only one who offers living water that keeps us from ever thirsting again).

We must recognize only God, not creation (which includes ourselves and each other. Fellow humans are merely finite. Our need for love is infinite) can sustain us in our darkest times. Pain can guide us to the realization that true and lasting life is only found in the infinite Creator, nothing else. The greater our suffering the greater the opportunity to see the inadequacy of creation to ⁶meet our deepest needs and longings. 

When we peel back the layers and consider all this, we recognize all that God does is good, even - maybe especially - by allowing evil, death, and suffering to ⁷continue.

Why? Unfortunately without pain, we will continue to cling to created things and may never realize how deep and great our need for God is; that only He can meet our deepest and infinite longings, not created things. It can stir us to ⁸return to God. With it, there is a chance and opportunity we might...so pain remains for now as a potential means of leading us back to the Creator, the Source of creation, who is good and always acts for our good.

And if we do return He uses it to deepen our trust in Him even more.

Though we are the cause of the pain, not God, He takes it and uses it for good. The wonder is God uses the fruit of our rebellion - pain, suffering, and death - to draw us back to Himself. And when we turn from distrust back to trust in him, this is exactly what happens.

Because we all have already turned away, there is pain and suffering but if one returns and finds God due to their pain and suffering, it is good and totally worth the pain. Others may intend it for harm but God intends it for good.

From all this, we realize if God did not use evil for good it would not exist. Because He can and does, it remains; at least for now.

The good news is Christ died (by fully embracing our pain and suffering - caused by no fault of his own) so we could one day be completely freed of all suffering (including death). 

Thanks to Christ, we will be freed one day if we receive His offer. Pain and suffering will have done their job and no longer be needed. In the meantime, He invites you to come and choose life. 

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. - Rev 22:17

For a further discussion on why God allows evil click here.

For a discussion on how we best impact the world for God's glory click here.

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Footnotes:

¹This does not mean we cease to exist, it means if Adam still possessed the life/Spirit of God he would have never physically died but lived forever and continued to have access to the Tree of Life. Death was not part of our original design and will no longer exist once we go into eternity and fully into God's presence, the source of life, love, and all things. 

¹Of course not everything about this world is evil and suffering. It is a curious mix of both good and evil. The creation still reflects significant elements of its original design which is good and beautiful - shrouded with a veil of sadness and the sense of something missing or incomplete. Nevertheless, creation continues to display something significant about the beauty and glory of God. So much so that we can not claim we know nothing about God. But this recognition alone is not enough. Pain often is also necessary to eventually leads us to see His beauty.

²Many have returned to God but before we did, this was our approach to life. Those who have returned, now look forward to the day all things will be fully restored with zero pain, suffering, and death. Thanks to God and His Son this is now possible.

³Unless he turns us back to himself.

⁴If you think the creation is beautiful now - and it is - just wait! For those who entrust themselves to him, they haven't seen anything yet!

⁵It was also the normal and natural outcome of us severing our connection with the source of life, love, and all things.

⁶apart from or outside of God, creation was never designed to be the source of our greatest comfort. Only a means of God showing His care for us. Creation was designed to point us to Him and His vast beauty and infinite love, not draw us away from Him. Created things alone - including other image-bearers - are inadequate and can only satisfy and sustain us on a temporary and superficial level. The greater our suffering, the more apparent this becomes if and when we return to Him.

⁷It is, after all, the absence of God that causes our pain to begin with. Pain and suffering are not a vengeful "getting even" by God for our turning away but the natural organic outcome of being disconnected from the source of life. This was confirmed when God did not reject Adam and Eve after their distrust but immediately provided both a short term (animal skins) and long-term solution (a promised savior - Gen 3:15) to their rebellion.

⁸Returning to God is our greatest good for God is good... the source of good and all good things. Without him, there is no creation to be enjoyed.

⁹Internal gifts consist of any natural innate gifts or abilities we are born with, whether artistic, musical, intellectual, athletic, and so on.

External gifts consist of anything outside of us that we use to sustain and improve our lives such as food, water, sunlight, plant and animal life, natural resources (minerals, gems, metals etc) etc. 

When we apply our internal gifts to the external gifts (natural resources) we are exercising our being in the image of God. So these are all good things. The problem is we don't do it to advance and honor God, the Giver of these, but to honor and advance ourselves.

rest

What does it mean to "rest" in God? Is there only one meaning?

I would suggest the Bible teaches there is an initial rest and an ongoing rest. 

After we have come into God's Kingdom and into our initial rest from His rightful judgment and condemnation, we are called to enter into and partake in an ongoing rest (contentment). 

The rest of this article will address ongoing rest. 

This occurs when we live according to two key truths.

1. We thank God for everything - especially the "bad" things - whether we understand why they are happening or not.

2. We faithfully (though not perfectly, necessarily) seek to do everything God calls us to do, whether we like it or not.

The 1st (i.e. hard circumstances) we do not control and must accept (receive) ¹passively, and the 2nd we do "control" and must pursue actively. 

Both require a choice we make by faith, and in this sense, both are active i.e. we choose - "control" - how we respond and how our circumstances affect us, not the circumstances. 

But neither can happen without God's strengthening/ empowering us (i.e. we can't do it in our own strength). But by His strength, which only comes through deeper trust in Him. 

We must come to a place where we fully recognize He is trustworthy in both what he allows (#1 above) and in what he calls us to (#2 above), and respond accordingly i.e. in and by faith. 

This is our choice alone and determines how these circumstances influence and shape us.

The theological underpinnings needed to live this way are infinitely deep, because they are grounded in our trust in the infinite love, power, faithfulness, care, and wisdom of God i.e. they must go as deep as God is vast, and as much as our faith allows us to embrace Him as being exactly who He is and claims to be.

To give assent to and ²faithfully carry or live these out, we must recognize (believe) God ³is always good, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving at all times and in all things. 

If you doubt these things about God concerning you and difficult circumstances, you will not be in a posture of humility and dependence needed to enter His rest. You will remain - abide if you will - in a state of agitation i.e. unrest, anxiety, or fear.

Resting in God is the essence of the now-popular saying, "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good."

Does this mean we will never struggle with believing these things?

Christ himself - the founder and perfector of our faith - wrestled with this in the garden of Gethsemane. He wrestled with both obedience (active) and acceptance (passive) of what God was about to allow him to go through. 

What settled it for him was one very simple decision, "...not my will but yours be done." He came to the place of complete surrender and trust. Once he did, his struggle was over. He was at peace i.e. resting in his trust in the Father, regardless of what He was about to and did go through.

This is why he was able to calmly say to his disciples, "See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer, is at hand.” Matt 26:45b-46. 

He stared pain straight in the face and, out of his total trust in His Father's love, wisdom, and power, was able to embrace the pain, the humbling, and the shame he was about to go through during His crucifixion. From this point forward, he set his eyes on the cross and never looked back. 

Christ was empowered to make this decision because he believed (trusted) his Father was all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving at that moment in that given circumstance. 

We, too, are called to this and can carry it out by the same strength we receive through this same trust in the Father. When we do, we too will calmly (peacefully) and deliberately move forward in life, no matter what is in front of us. 

For a discussion on how God uses evil for good click here.

For a further discussion on why God allows suffering and evil click here.

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¹Passively only in the sense that we don't necessarily have to or can do anything regarding challenging circumstances (of course, if we can, we should take action, but sometimes nothing we do can change things). However, we are never to be passive in terms of faith. Our faith must be actively and willfully engaged to enter and remain in an ongoing state of rest - peace. 

Both being thankful for challenges and engaging others in sacrificial love require faith (in the same way it did for Christ), so in this sense, everything involves active engagement and is not passive. 

²Some have suggested that if you break the word faithful down, it simply means full of faith i.e. faith full. To be faithful (obedient) no matter what we encounter, we must be full of faith.

³To acknowledge these things about God is not easy (it wasn't for Christ either), especially when staring into the face of great evil, struggle, and personal pain. 

What would you say is the biggest thing God is after in the lives of his children? 

Is it not our experiencing a closer relationship with Him?

and

The most important element of any relationship is trust

and

That which requires our greatest trust is suffering, pain, and challenges. We must embrace these and thank God for them. Without faith/trust this isn't possible.

How? The "good" God works in and through all the things we go through - for those of us who love Him (Rom 8:28) - is to make us like His Son (Rom 8:29). In doing so, we experience the same level of glorious and blissful communion with the Father that the Son did (and does). This is the ultimate good end God is working toward, for us, through our struggles. Not necessarily improved circumstances. This has nothing to do with improved circumstances (though it could and sometimes does lead to them, just not automatically). 

What better end is there than to experience God in all his love and glory to the greatest extent possible? 

And what better means is there to participate in this, other than having the same faith (and faithfulness) Christ had? 

And what faith do we have if not a tested faith? 

And what tests our faith most - and Christ's - if not pain and suffering?

Being a victim or playing one

Being a victim and "playing the victim" is not the same. Being a victim is rooted in the reality of being harmed i.e. you or someone else was really and truly hurt and suffered a loss of some kind - physically, emotionally, materially, reputation wise etc. - at the hands of another i.e. an offender. 

"Playing the victim" however is rooted in self-pity and seeking to garner the pity of others by using the harm-pain the victim has experienced to gain sympathy and even attempt to use it manipulate others. Someone may have been genuinely hurt, but "playing the victim" uses "victimhood" often to ¹exact revenge or seek a benefit (or both) from others in order to self-comfort or self-protect.

Being harmed is real as well as wrong and should be fully acknowledged and recognized for what it is. This is ²necessary to help the victim be freed from the offense, - i.e. to be able to forgive the offender - learn what they can through it - about God's forgiveness or self-forgiveness etc. - and move on with their life. 

Seeking self-pity by playing the victim is simply an attempt to self-love instead of depending on and looking to the God of love who ultimately uses all things - including offenses - for the good of those who love him.

Possibly the most important thing to know about unforgiveness (i.e. refusal or trouble in letting go of offenses) is it may be an indication you do not know your own great offenses against God (and others) and the forgiveness offered to you. 

For more on God's solution to offenses click here.

For a discussion on racism and forgiveness click here.

For a discussion on values, culture and racism click here.

For a personal story of being a victim of discrimination click here.

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¹I would suggest a great deal -- though certainly not all that drives the victim agenda in various forms -- sometimes referred to as "social justice" - e.g. "me too" "black lives matter" "men or whites are evil" feminism, racism, etc - is this very desire to hurt others because we have been hurt. To say it succinctly, playing the victim is usually rooted in revenge due to bitterness over past offenses. 

Though there are real issues (offenses) we must look at in all attempts at justice, we can not see offenses clearly until the underlying emotional hurt is addressed first i.e. forgiven. 

Anger/revenge rarely produces objective or clear thinking, no matter what position one takes on different issues. There is unrighteous anger on all sides of the political spectrum.

Any agenda driven by retaliation or retribution is not driven by love. No matter how offended we have been we are still called to love others... even our enemies. Christ modeled this himself best while hanging on the cross when he said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" to those who put Him there. 

One remains in pain if a wound goes unaddressed/unhealed. This is why emotions are just under the surface for those in pain and easily triggered and so passionately vented when a new offense occurs - even if no offense actually occurred or was intended. When there is a real offense, often the response is out of proportion to the offense for those with a victim disposition and mentality. This is our first clue there is unresolved anger/bitterness from past offenses. A response-reaction that comes out of pain is never a rational one but almost always excessive and emotional e.g. filled with anger, hate, etc. 

People are often not able to explain why they are so easily triggered out of proportion to the offense because of it's deep roots (that fester up to the surface and are often ready to erupt at the slightest provocation). 

What is the solution? 

Forgiveness that springs forth from our being forgiven by God. This is so basic it is a major part of the Lord's prayer.

11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Matthew 6:11-13 (ESV)

²in order to truly and fully forgive and completely be freed we must know the full extent of the harm. To say it another way, if we forgive a small offense when a large one actually occurred, we are not getting to the bottom of the issue and therefore can not be fully freed from it. Forgiveness must be equal to the offense. 

Of course even more fundamental is recognizing the extent of our own offense against God himself and the length to which he went to remedy it... and did,  in and through Christ.  Without a clear understanding of our own offense to God and the full extent of his forgiveness of us, we can never truly and fully forgive others.

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Question...How do you feel about the picture to the right? Some may find it highly offensive. If you do, this actually serves to underscore my point. You may wish to dig inside a little to understand why. If you find yourself "triggered," angry or even feeling rage by this card, it may be a good indication you have unresolved bitterness over past offenses. 

You may be bothered by the picture for another reason. 

It is right to have compassion for those who have been harmed or broken in some way. Christ certainly did. Some may feel this picture mocks this and are bothered for this reason. And that is good. Not that you are offended, but that you care. A significant part of Christ's ministry was to heal those who were damaged - more so from physical than emotional pain, though these are often connected and not entirely separate. The pain people feel is real and deserves being acknowledged for what it is i.e. the fruit of living among broken people, in a broken world, and the harm that comes to us as a result. 

The pain of others should matter to us because it mattered to Christ. It matters to him because he also wrongfully suffered at the hands of others far more than any of us. 

When our pain produces humility we are on the road to healing. If it produces anger, anxiety, depression, etc we may have some work to do yet. 

I personally think the above card is a clever and appropriate analogy of how some use past offenses to "cash in" on their suffering. So would call this "playing the victim card." 

This would be more true of the "leaders" of the "victim movement" themselves, than the actual victims.