Finding Grace in the Pain

One of the great mysteries of faith regarding God’s grace is: where is God’s grace or love in the pain and suffering of life? Why do bad things happen to good people? How do we reconcile the belief that God is a good God who loves us, yet allows so much suffering? Have you ever wondered these things in your own circumstances or prayed, God, where are You?  God, why did this happen to me or my loved one?

These are very valid questions. How do we find God’s grace in the pain? If you have ever asked the question Why?, then you are in good company since scholars, theologists and laypersons have been trying to answer that question for years. To leave you with the idea that God’s grace encompasses only a showering His love and affection on us all the time without understanding the entire scope of grace would be unfair. To cause you to believe that if you follow God, all your problems in life will vanquish and you will never experience pain ever again, would be unfair. So, in follow-up to my last post, we will look at two things: 1) the purpose of pain and 2) a deeper understanding of grace.

THE PURPOSE OF PAIN

There is a very rare congenital disease called congenital analgia a/k/a congenital insensitivity to pain (CIPA). Only 35 people in the United States have this condition and of those that have it, very few live past the age of 25. These people cannot feel pain at all. Most of them die horrific deaths. A 10-year old boy in India died because his appendix ruptured and he couldn’t feel the pain to know he was sick or to tell anyone, so he bled to death. In the Ukraine, a baby girl born with CIPA shredded her lips when she was teething and then, at the age of 3, put her hand on a hot stove and left it there until her parents smelled her burning flesh and found her sitting in a pool of blood.

Like it or not, pain is necessary. Spiritual, emotional or physical growth cannot occur without pain. It is, in a sense, one of our greatest teachers in life. Not being able to feel physical pain is incredibly dangerous. You need pain to tell you what you should and shouldn't do. You need pain to tell you when to move away from something because it is causing you harm. Most people try to avoid causing pain to themselves, but it is because they have felt pain that they are able to avoid those things that initially caused the pain. The very same is true of emotional or spiritual pain.

Pain comes into our lives in various ways:

I Will Love You Freely

The Human Economy of Love

We grow up in an entirely different economy of love than God’s love.  Simple behavior modification methods train us from infant on up that certain behaviors are acceptable and others are not.  If we behave well, the consequence is reward.  If we behave badly, the consequence is punishment.  Please do not misunderstand, it is necessary to do this. Even God provided the law as a means of disciplining and guiding his people to maturity, both in relation with each other (socially) as well as in relation to Himself.