Does True Love Allow Pain?
I've been thinking again about how much God loves us.
His love is so strong, so pure, He's willing to watch us suffer.
Let me explain what I mean.
When things happen to us which are painful, we tend to beg and pray that God will resolve the problem quickly, or make it go away.
The situation will be really difficult. Someone we love will be dying. We'll be down to our last ten dollars, our last rent money. We'll be struggling with a health issue.
We'll be in agony over it, and we let our human perspective blind us.
We begin to doubt God, that He is good, that He cares about us or our situation.
But the amazing thing, if we take the time to consider, is that God never stopped loving us, or caring about what we're going through. The Bible is full of verses declaring His love for us.
God loved us so much:
1. He sent Jesus to die for us (John 3:16; 1 John 3:16).*
2. He calls us who have accepted Christ's sacrifice and Lordship His children (1 John 3:1).
3. He is patient, compassionate, merciful, and ready to forgive (Psalm 86:5, 15).
4. He won't let anything separate us from His love (Romans 8:37-39).
5. He comforts us when we feel afraid and overwhelmed (Psalm 94:18-19).
6. He promises to be with us through trials (Isaiah 43:2).
And there are so many more ways He loves us.
So why, if God loves us so much, does He let us suffer? Why doesn't He just fix our problems right away?
Okay, bear with my crazy imagination.
I imagine God sees what we're going through, the pain we're suffering, and it hurts Him. I imagine it must be agony to watch His beloved creation, who He formed from dust, molded in the womb, is still holding our very being together, suffer.
We suffer watching those we love struggle with illness, bad situations, etc., and we can't even fix the problem; we love imperfectly. How much greater is the suffering of an Almighty God Who loves us perfectly, and can solve the problem right away?
I wonder if He's ever tempted to just fix things, to end our suffering?
But I know His love is great for me, for all of us, because instead of doing that, He orchestrates things so that they'll turn out for our best, even if going through them is painful for us, and agony for Him to watch.
That's much greater love than just fixing our problems for us, and granting every little wish. He guards us from what wouldn't be good for us even when we beg and plead for it. He lets us suffer to strengthen us and draw us closer to Him.
Our human sight sees only so far, but God's sight stretches to eternity. He knows just how the pain we're suffering now is going to effect our futures, how it will strengthen us for the time to come, how it will sanctify us and strengthen our faith.
God doesn't make horrible things happen to us because He is a horrible God. Rather, He allows those things to happen to us because He knows how they will work for our good (Romans 8:28).
This might seem like a cheap cop-out when you're in the middle of a terrible trial. I don't pretend to understand how God uses these horrible things to work for our best. But His understanding is so much greater than ours, and He can see much farther. So I hope and pray that, even though we don't understand, can't understand, that we wouldn't turn from God, but instead trust that His love works even in the darkest hour.
*Forgive me while I geek out over how cool it is that the same verse in both John and 1 John talk about Christ's sacrificial death. How neat is it that God had John write both passages so that when the books were later divided up into chapters and verses, it'd be 3:16 in both books?
His love is so strong, so pure, He's willing to watch us suffer.
Let me explain what I mean.
When things happen to us which are painful, we tend to beg and pray that God will resolve the problem quickly, or make it go away.
The situation will be really difficult. Someone we love will be dying. We'll be down to our last ten dollars, our last rent money. We'll be struggling with a health issue.
We'll be in agony over it, and we let our human perspective blind us.
We begin to doubt God, that He is good, that He cares about us or our situation.
But the amazing thing, if we take the time to consider, is that God never stopped loving us, or caring about what we're going through. The Bible is full of verses declaring His love for us.
God loved us so much:
1. He sent Jesus to die for us (John 3:16; 1 John 3:16).*
2. He calls us who have accepted Christ's sacrifice and Lordship His children (1 John 3:1).
3. He is patient, compassionate, merciful, and ready to forgive (Psalm 86:5, 15).
4. He won't let anything separate us from His love (Romans 8:37-39).
5. He comforts us when we feel afraid and overwhelmed (Psalm 94:18-19).
6. He promises to be with us through trials (Isaiah 43:2).
And there are so many more ways He loves us.
So why, if God loves us so much, does He let us suffer? Why doesn't He just fix our problems right away?
Okay, bear with my crazy imagination.
I imagine God sees what we're going through, the pain we're suffering, and it hurts Him. I imagine it must be agony to watch His beloved creation, who He formed from dust, molded in the womb, is still holding our very being together, suffer.
We suffer watching those we love struggle with illness, bad situations, etc., and we can't even fix the problem; we love imperfectly. How much greater is the suffering of an Almighty God Who loves us perfectly, and can solve the problem right away?
I wonder if He's ever tempted to just fix things, to end our suffering?
But I know His love is great for me, for all of us, because instead of doing that, He orchestrates things so that they'll turn out for our best, even if going through them is painful for us, and agony for Him to watch.
That's much greater love than just fixing our problems for us, and granting every little wish. He guards us from what wouldn't be good for us even when we beg and plead for it. He lets us suffer to strengthen us and draw us closer to Him.
Our human sight sees only so far, but God's sight stretches to eternity. He knows just how the pain we're suffering now is going to effect our futures, how it will strengthen us for the time to come, how it will sanctify us and strengthen our faith.
God doesn't make horrible things happen to us because He is a horrible God. Rather, He allows those things to happen to us because He knows how they will work for our good (Romans 8:28).
This might seem like a cheap cop-out when you're in the middle of a terrible trial. I don't pretend to understand how God uses these horrible things to work for our best. But His understanding is so much greater than ours, and He can see much farther. So I hope and pray that, even though we don't understand, can't understand, that we wouldn't turn from God, but instead trust that His love works even in the darkest hour.
*Forgive me while I geek out over how cool it is that the same verse in both John and 1 John talk about Christ's sacrificial death. How neat is it that God had John write both passages so that when the books were later divided up into chapters and verses, it'd be 3:16 in both books?
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