Temporary pain, long-term benefit

We understand that there are times when causing pain is in the best interest of the person we love. Think about child discipline. Parents do not want to be the source of a child’s pain yet a good parent will discipline their child because the parent knows that boundaries are healthy. A surgeon will cause his patient’s pain to remove a life draining tumor, an athlete will cause his own pain through training for a moment of glory, and a parent will cause emotional distress to a child they love when they step out of line. The old adage goes something like this “no pain, no gain”. The idea is that we should be willing to endure temporary pain for a better outcome. So why would God be any different?

a good parent will discipline their child because the parent knows that boundaries are healthy.

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We see this when people ask “why would a loving God cause so much pain”? We hear sermons on how God heals the sick or how He is the source of a miracle that someone was able to pay a bill. When anything good happens in our lives we attribute it to God’s divine intervention (if we believe in him). Yet when something bad happens we question God’s goodness. Here is the thing, God does not always heal the sick. in fact if we look at Mark 6 Jesus was unable to do “any miracles except lay of hands on a few sick people”. This was, we are told, due to their lack of faith.

Miracles and God’s Goodness

God’s goodness is not determined by his willingness or unwillingness to heal or by the arrival or absence of a miracle. Oddly enough his goodness is tied up in first, who he is, but second, through the pain he allows. I’ll say it again incase you missed it. God’s goodness is tied up in the pain that he allows. I’ll make this more personal in a second but ask your self this, if you don’t believe me. How much pain did Jesus endure on the cross? He was mocked, beaten, naked, humiliated, and this does not include the physical pain he endured. God’s love and goodness as well as his judgement and wrath are united at the cross of Christ. The true essence of God’s goodness is found in the pain of Christ. Without this pain there is no good news and there is no way for us to see God’s goodness. Yes, God can bless his creation. We see this is true from his statement in Matthew mentioned earlier where the sun represents blessing. But all that miracles were meant to do in the new testament was to show that Jesus was who he said he was, the messiah and what him being the messiah meant. Or they were to validate the apostles’ message of Christ. For example, Jesus states “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). After a heated discussion with the religious leaders of his time Jesus provides light to a man born blind by healing him (John 9). The miracle was not to heal someone who was blind but it was to validate Jesus’s claim about himself that he was the light of the world. Often we throw around “miracle” too flippantly and attribute everyday things as a miracle. We see God’s goodness tied to how often he sends us a miracle. How often he heals us, in our minds, shows his goodness to us. But this can’t be true if his goodness is most demonstrated through pain (the cross).

God’s goodness is tied up in the pain that he allows

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Before I go on I want to say that faith is not a prerequisite of healing. For instance, John 5:1-9 tells of a man who Jesus healed who had no apparent faith in Jesus yet he was healed. Jesus himself says “…he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the wicked” (Matthew 5:45). He can heal who he wants and can not heal who he wants regardless of background, faith, or any other factor.

What does this mean for us today? First, God does not need to provide a miracle to show he is God. And, second, that it is often better for him to cause pain instead of protecting us from it. This means that praying for a miracle could take away from God’s plan of demonstrating his goodness to us. This is not to say God couldn’t work in another way but as CS Lewis says in the problem of pain “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”.

God does not need to provide a miracle to show he is God

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We love the world more than God

Here is the problem; we are so attached to this world we have grown to love it. We love the taste of food, the joy of friendship, the allure of art, the smell of a rose. We love our family, careers, cars, and lifestyle. No matter who we are we are so attached to this world that the thought of leaving it leaves us dumbfounded. We dare not talk about death because it is so painful to think about loosing the things we love. In fact, when one of these things we love is threatened to be taken away from us we will often pray for a miracle. We desire God’s intervention so that we do not loose the thing or person we so deeply love. We desire God’s power but not God himself.

But God knows what we need better than we do. He knows what our longings truly are and is prepared to offer this to us. Sadly, we love the things that will not provide us with what we need. Oh, we might get a moment of satisfaction from making a new purchase of an item we don’t really need, or from a hug of a crush, for example. But in time we know we will be right back wanting more. So we go about fulfilling an unknown need or desire with things or relationships that can’t and won’t last. All the while marching to a someday that will result in a life lived with no meaning other than selfish purists. God knows this is not good for us so he gives us, freely, what we need, himself.

Yet we do not accept this. We do not believe he is enough. Even though everything that we enjoy has come from him (James 1:7) we still deny that he is what we need. So, what is left for him to do? Take away the things that are killing us. Removing a tumor is painful yet necessary. We need God and in order for us to understand this God needs to do a bit of surgery. He needs to remove our selfishness, our desires need to become his desires, our plans need to line up with his. Here is why this is so important; there is more to life after death. If we are not prepared to face God when we die everything we ever cared about will be separated from us forever. We will be cast outside the family that we have always longed for. God knows this and is willing to do anything he can to make sure this does not happen. He will force us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death in order for us to rely on Him alone. He will remove that cancer of loving this world but it will be painful. In his goodness he knows that causing us pain now will result in an eternity of never having to say goodbye to the things we have grown to love here. God is not interested in taking everything away and leaving only himself. Although, this would still show us a kindness we do not deserve. He is interested in restoring everything we care about to a degree that we will never have to leave it. His only requirement is that we love him MORE than everything and everyone. He wants us to not fear death but to be excited for it and welcome death like we welcome birth.

God above everything?

Yes, God may not heal you. Yes you may loose your job. Yes, you may not get the miracle you have been led to believe you would get. But God offers something much more important than all of this, himself. Are we willing to put to death everything we love in order to show our love to him in return? If not, he will help us with killing these desires if we allow him.

One last thought. God will not forcibly remove this cancer of selfishness, he will do everything he can to show you there is something better out there, but he will not force this procedure. If we truly would rather have the things of this world he will let us have them. He will allow that emptiness these things produce in us and we will forever be left to the things we thought we wanted while missing the one thing we needed: God alone. When tragedy strikes understand that you still have Jesus and even when everything else is crashing down around you his life is enough for you. The issue is letting go of the things of this world. Once we put to death everything we ever cared about and act like we have already lost everything can we truly begin to enjoy life. I am better able to enjoy a moment with someone if I believe I have already lost that person and every moment I spend with that person is a gift.

God wants to make us into people that do not depend on this material world. He wants to make us into a people who rely only on him and who live as if there is more to this life after death. The only way he can do this is through removing things we love until he is all that remains. If we continue to try to hold on to this world the removal will be increasingly painful. But it is through this pain we can begin to live free and enjoy God’s goodness. It is only through pain where we can find true and lasting worship. For this reason “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages” -Charles Spurgeon

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages”

Charles Spurgeon

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