Pam Parish

In Part One of this three part series we began exploring the issue of difficulty and pain in our lives and the all too common question, “God, if you love me so much, why would you let this happen to me?” If you haven’t read Part One, I encourage you to read it as an introduction to the next part of our journey. So, without further ado, let’s find out what Jesus and the Bible teach us about trouble.

Jesus said, “…in life you will have trouble (bone crushing opposition)….. but be of good cheer.” Don’t we always think “that verse is for someone else…” Sure we do. What we miss or ignore is that if you read scripture, those closest to God suffered the most. Most of Jesus’ disciples were beaten, tortured, afflicted with sickness and killed. And, Jesus knew it was going to happen! He warned Simon Peter in Luke, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren…” If you read that scripture in the original Greek, you’ll find that the word “you” is plural meaning that Satan was asking for all of the disciples, not just Simon Peter. And, what does Jesus say? Does He say that He told Satan, “NO! They’re off limits.” or “Ok, you can test them, but you cannot harm them physically, or kill them, or hurt their families, or….” No, He did none of that, but instead He tells Peter that he prayed for him that his “faith may not fail” and that through it he would strengthen the brethren.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a bitter pill to swallow. I don’t know that if I’d been Peter, I might not have said, “Jesus, I’ve left everything for you, sacrificed so much and you can’t even protect me?” I mean, isn’t that what we’ve come to expect as Christians? That God will give us a perfect life… we quote all the right scriptures, “we’ll prosper and be in good health“, “our steps are ordered of the Lord (said with an unspoken belief that our steps will only lead to unhurtful things..),”we find favor with God (again with an unspoken belief that the favor will always result in good things) - don’t get me wrong, I think those are all great and true, and I pray them myself. I simply think we need to expand our expectations in these areas to realize that sometimes what may be extremely hurtful at the moment, could quite possibly be used mightily by God to make us stronger. No, He doesn’t want us to suffer, but He knows and warned us that suffering would come and that He would give us the strength to endure and triumph!

The crux of the matter is this, even though we love God, we serve him joyfully, even though we have a strong prayer life, read the bible daily, lead others to Him - we are not exempt from suffering and pain. Our world is broken, ravaged by sin, damaged by our own lack of care, our environment is increasingly toxic, our eating habits are poor, and our own personal care for the health of our ‘temple’ is sorely lacking - all of these things create a ‘perfect storm’ in our lives that allow the entrance of pain. Beyond just that, God calls us to love even unlovable people - that type of love comes with hurt. People aren’t perfect and they will hurt our feelings, stab us in the back, turn against us and talk about us.

Even though we aren’t promised exemption from our pain and troubles in this life (actually we’re promised they’ll come) - we do have many promises that He will be there in the midst to give us strength, comfort and wisdom. We are to take joy in His presence in the midst of our sorrow. And, maybe, if only for a moment, when we take our eyes off the pain and put them squarely on Him - we’ll find rest.

Now that we know that Jesus and the Bible are clear on the issue of pain in our lives, what do they have to say about what we are to do in the midst of it? We’ll explore that in Part Three of our series. Stay tuned…

Keeping my eyes on Him,