The Problem of Pain, Part 2: Pain’s Positive Role

“In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

While it seems as though a loving and just Father would do everything to prevent His children from enduring suffering, Jesus told His disciples during the Last Supper that they would have trouble. This is a message that has transcended the bounds of history through the pen of John, the disciple Jesus loved, and reached our eyes and ears. The message wouldn’t have made it this far if God didn’t want us to know and understand that we truly would endure trouble. But how can we take heart when tragedy strikes? Sometimes the grief simply seems insurmountable, and it causes us to doubt the love of God. Could it be that our doubt simply stems from a misunderstanding of God’s love and how He can use pain to make a difference in our lives?

The normal person would wonder, at this point, how pain can possibly be beneficial. When truly painful things happen, they are often completely beyond our control and miserably frustrating. It can sometimes be so bad that it causes us to feel as though life is no longer worth living. In the initial stages of grief over our pain, those of us who pray may ask God to either take away our affliction or take our lives. Those of us who don’t pray might languish for a long time before finding our solace in some earthly pleasure. This is a solace that, if we are honest with ourselves, is temporary because what we placed our hope in is temporary. As soon as this object is taken away, we are back to square one.

The apostle Paul is a wonderful example of this exact principle. This man had been through pain and frustration of a magnitude that many of us cannot imagine for the sake of the Gospel at the time he wrote 2 Corinthians. Not only that, but He had a “thorn in [his] flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment [him].” This man, like many of us, prayed that God would take away His affliction. And do you know what Christ said to Him? Christ, the loving and merciful Savior, said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Read 2 Corinthians 11:16-12:10 to get the full story.

God allowed this to happen to Paul in order to keep him from becoming conceited. God brought Paul to the point of complete dependency on Him so that Paul wouldn’t think that he could do any of his ministry on his own, because frankly he couldn’t. Paul was called by God to minister to the Gentiles and served as a catalyst for the spread of the Gospel all over the world. This was not easy, and Paul needed to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to endure it!

You see, if we are to serve God and fulfill His purpose for our lives, we must depend on Him for every ounce of strength. Pain brings us to our knees in order that we may have humility and realize that we can’t do this on our own, in dependency on other people, or in dependency on other things. The benefit that pain has to offer us is the opportunity to fall into God’s open arms, crying “Abba, Father!” He is there to bring comfort in the midst of our distress, and He wants to! He wants to have a relationship with you, and He is jealous for you. Let Him have your life, and you will never see your pain the same way again. You will have a loving and all-knowing Father to lead and guide you every step of the way. He holds the past, the present, and the future, and even if your pain feels as though it is needless, realize that He is big enough to use any circumstances, whether they are painful or not.

Awesome

What do you think of when you hear that word?

Awesome. Cool. Sick. Fun. Sweet. God. Song. Emotion. Whatever.

Now I ask you, what is awe? What composes the word ‘awesome’?

To remain academically honest, I looked up awesome. Here are some synonyms: amazing, appalling, breathtaking, ghostly, grand, hairy, imposing, majestic, solemn, uncanny, alarming, and astonishing.

Next I looked up simply awe, since my first answer was not satisfactory. This is what I got: an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: in awe of God.

~(Thank You Dictionary.com)~

An overwhelming feeling of reverence, fear and admiration.

I present to you that our culture has taken the word awesome and degraded it. Do we ever recognize God’s awesomeness? Are we ever overwhelmed by his immense power? Are we ever overwhelmed with fear when we just begin to imagine what we deserve from such a powerful God? Are we ever truly in awe of His unyielding love?

God is an amazingly powerful God – He spoke the world into existence; and He’s omnipotent – all powerful. God is powerful. That speaks for itself. His power is so immense that He flooded the entire earth, it is so immense that He stopped time – held the sun in the sky – just so that the Israelites might have victory. He is so powerful, that when the Philistines so much as had the ark in their possession, disease broke out; so powerful, so holy, that the seventy Israelites that looked inside the ark when it came back died where they stood. So powerful, that he decimated Sodom and Gomorrah for their immorality. God is powerful; that much is clear.

Now think of what God could do with that power if He were not merciful, if He were to unleash His wrath on all of his deserving creation. All have fallen short of God’s glory, all have sinned, and all deserve death, deserve his wrath. That means that You and I are both at the mercy of that awesomely powerful God. We deserve His wrath, we deserve the worst kind of pain we could imagine, and worse. Just think of what happened to Christ. Okay, He suffered horrible things on earth. But that was nothing compared to God’s wrath. That was the wrath of Man. Imagine God’s wrath who is infinitely more powerful than we are. Imagine that and be filled with fear.

Finally, think of God’s love. His power is awesome, His wrath is awesome, but we yet live – why? It’s because God loves us. John 3:16 is a well quoted verse. It basically says that God sent His only Son to die by our hands, so that we may be with Him. God sent His Son, to suffer His awesome wrath, just so that we could be together with Him. Is that not awe inspiring love? So it’s not only the love that keeps us from suffering His wrath, but love beyond that; so that we can go to heaven and be with Him. Is that not amazing? Is that not awesome?

The Problem of Pain: Part 1

Although Christianity involves a God who is loving, merciful, kind, and compassionate, many choose to question His love and, in turn, His existence. There are 991,000 individuals in America who claim to be agnostic,[1] meaning they believe in the possibility of the existence of a god or gods, but they are not certain of this existence. What is it that blocks their certainty? This is the question that many evangelical Christians may ask as they make an effort to share their faith with those around them, as Jesus commanded us to do in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20).

I submit that the main impediment for many agnostics is the problem of pain. Sometimes we, as human beings who are small and easily thrown by the winds and waves of life, simply have to ask the question, “Why?” “Why do I endure needless suffering day by day?” “Why did my loved one pass away so suddenly and unexpectedly?” “How many times and for how long do I have sit here and grieve loss and have my life interrupted by unnecessary pain that does nothing but impede my growth?” Aside from personal struggles, we may also ask, “Why would a god who is loving and merciful allow the pain and suffering that happens in the world today? After all, 15 million children die every year from starvation;[2] 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually;[3] not to mention the whole slew of natural disasters that continually takes place, inflicting massive amounts of death and injury on millions of innocent people. The mere existence of death in and of itself is cause for complaint. Wouldn’t an omnipotent God be able to prevent these things from happening? Wouldn’t a completely righteous God be just enough to do so?” These questions have the potential to lead one to the conclusion that either God isn’t really loving and merciful or He doesn’t exist altogether.

Because of the massive impact that these questions can have on a person’s faith, it is important for us to be sensitive to the importance of this issue. Some of us are strong like Job and can simply trust God’s sovereignty in any and every situation. That is a wonderful gift and an ability that should bring peace and joy to the lives of those who have it. But what of those who lack that ability? What becomes of their faith, and consequently, what becomes of them? It is important for those of us who are strong to not pass judgment on these people and to be empathetic and supportive of them in their time of pain and doubt. Sometimes they don’t need for us to accuse them of being faithless by questioning God, but they need us simply to love them and care for them to the best of our ability and by the strength and power of the Holy Spirit that is given to us. Then, when they are ready, we can embark on a beautiful journey with them of the discovery of God’s plan and purpose for their lives.

In the meantime, these people may want practical answers. Maybe you are enduring times of difficulty and pain and you are seeking answers to some of these questions for yourself. If so, know that you have no reason to be ashamed, but take heart in knowing that God will never leave you nor forsake you (Deut. 31:6) and he collects every single one of your tears in His own bottle and keeps them (Ps. 56:8). This God is a big God, bigger than all your pain and heartache. He cares for you, as is evidenced by the sacrifice of His son in order that your sins may be atoned for and you may have fellowship with Him (John 3:16). Be strong and take heart, and stay tuned for some more analyses of how pain could possibly play a positive role in your life and in the lives of others.

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[1] http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm

[2] http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

[3] http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html

God and Money Problems

Only For the Poor?
Why are there so many people in the midst of money problems today? Is it really because of high living expenses and the gap between the “haves and the have-nots” driving people to live outside of their means?

Many people seek financial counseling for answers, and some who take that route do find solutions which help them begin to live within their means. It is also true that financial problems are not entirely confined to those without what is deemed as adequate financial resources — for many with larger incomes also find themselves in the same boat of living from paycheck to paycheck.

Stewardship
Correcting money problems is a matter of being a good steward of the resources we have and allocating those resources in a manner that brings benefit rather than burden. This is a learned skill and begins with the choice to be the master of money rather than allowing money to master us.

Therefore, in order to correct money problems we must change the way we view and use the money we already have through self-discipline. How do we find the self-discipline it takes to correct our money troubles?

Every freedom we have comes with responsibility, and income is no different. How we use what we are given determines our contentment with what we have, for money does not bring happiness nor contentment. So if we seek to satisfy the desires of our hearts with things then we will always need bigger and better things to satiate us.

Biblical View
“The biblical view of money is that we use it for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Rather than seeking to gain more and more of what the world has to offer we need to seek after the things of God, and He in turn will supply all of our need.

Christianity vs. Science

Christianity vs. Science
Secularists claim that the God hypothesis does nothing other than put an end to scientific inquiry. They assume that God is only used to fill in the answers to the questions that scientific knowledge hasn’t yet discovered. However, I would contend that such a God of the gaps mentality is not a legitimate use of the God hypothesis. Rather, the biblical God has very explicit attributes that may be explainable scientifically. Certain events documented historically in the Bible may be subjected to scientific evaluation. However, scientific materialism places detour signs that block potentially open roads of scientific inquiry into these arenas.

An End to All Religions?
Since so many religions have proven themselves detrimental to society, can one assume that none of them have any merit? We agree that not all religions are true, but this doesn’t prove the falsity of every religion. It is possible that one religion is actually true. May I suggest that the reason Christianity represents the dominant faith in America today is because so many Americans have already put other religions (and atheism) to the test and found them wanting? Orthodox, evangelical Christianity has found support from soft sciences like archaeology, history, and philosophy. Christianity should be put to the test in the hard sciences as well.

Who is God?

Who is God?
Who does God claim to be? The Creator? A benevolent friend? A life-force? Who is God to YOU?

Who Does He Claim to Be?
God has been described as everything from an impersonal life-force to a benevolent, personal, almighty Creator. He has been called by many names, including: “Zeus,” “Jupiter,” “Brahma,” “Allah,” “Ra,” “Odin,” “Ashur,” “Izanagi,” “Viracocha,” “Ahura Mazda,” and “the Great Spirit” just to name a few. He’s seen by some as “Mother Nature” and by others as “Father God.” But who is He really? Who does He claim to be?

Father God or Mother Nature?
What has He revealed about Himself? To begin with, whenever He refers to Himself in parental terms, He always addresses Himself as “Father,” never “Mother.” He calls Himself “a Father to Israel,”and in one instance, when His “children” were particularly disrespectful to Him, He said to them, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?”

His prophets acknowledged Him as Father by saying, “You are our Father, we are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand,”and “do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?” Never once does God refer to Himself as “Mother” and never once is He called such by the prophets to whom He spoke. Calling God “Mother Nature” is comparable to calling your earthly father “Mom.”

The Meaning of Life

An Ageless Search
What is the meaning of life? This is one of the most frequently asked questions by all of humanity since the beginning of time. It is a question naturally asked by people because they have the ability to make choices about life. The question would appear to be difficult to answer and different for every individual depending on their circumstances. It is the ultimate search for truth and purpose in life; the reason we were born, wake up everyday and exist.

The Truth
Although people have struggled for the purpose of their existence throughout history, the answer for the meaning of life is relatively simple and the same for everyone; it is to love God by choosing to have a relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.

How to Move Forward
Once you understand the meaning of life, the next step is choosing to follow God’s plan for your life.  God made you for a specific purpose; however, before you can fulfill that purpose, you need to establish a relationship with God.

How to Fulfill Your Mission
The challenge to the meaning of life is being faithful to the calling of God and being dedicated to fulfilling the purpose that He created you for by accomplishing your life mission. The Holy Bible addresses these issues clearly to give people answers about how to lead their life in every circumstance, from poor to rich, from health to illness, from strong to weak, and from spiritual to sinful. Everybody has limiting circumstances, but God gives people this ultimate life instruction book called the Bible to help them understand how to make the right choices throughout their changing life. Learn about what God wants for you and submit to His plan for a life of fulfilling significance.

Life Challenges and Decision Making

Life Challenges
Do you find yourself in a life challenge or trial – not sure which way to turn? Has an event or illness suddenly changed the whole pattern of your life and your plan for the future? Life Challenges can shake you at your very core. It is our desire that through the articles below, you will find comfort for your past, practical help for today, and lasting hope for your future.

Decision Making
Most Christians have been taught how to find God’s will, yet many are still unsure whether they’ve found it. God does guide His people, but the question is, “How does He guide? God has an individual will for each life. Biblical decision making begins with a willingness to submit your intentions to God’s perfect will and humbly follow his direction. The problem is that most of us don’t know how to figure out exactly what God’s will is in every decision we face—especially the big, life-altering decisions. If only our decisions were risk-free, guaranteeing us the best desired outcome!

Decision Making Forces Us To:

• Accept responsibility for the success or failure of our choice.
• Experience first-hand how that decision helps or harms others.
• Identify the most reliable source of wisdom that equips us for making those decisions.

Does God Exist?

Does God Exist?
God may not be provable through mathematical formula or properties of physics, but we live in an era where the evidence of God is all around us.

An answer to this fundamental question is a prerequisite for answering the other big questions of life: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What purpose do we serve? Do we have any intrinsic value? What happens after we die? The question of the existence of God is fundamental.

Does God Exist Scientifically?
God either exists or He doesn’t. Your opinion of this issue determines your entire worldview.

Does God Exist Philosophically?
Based on intellect and experience, many people are creating their own world-views – their own philosophies for living. Using standard cultural labels, it seems we’re all becoming materialist, naturalist, relativist, humanist, hedonists that seem to think we have it pretty well together.

Does God Care?

Does God Care?
Usually that is a question people ask when they are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles and calamities.

Why does this happen? In Ecclesiastes 9:11 it says, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance will happen to them all.”

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)