GodReflection: God Breaks in Mondays

I can smell a valuable book rather quickly. Often, my attraction is to authors who are onto the scent of God.

The download of Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World turns out to be a book that smells of God. Chapter 10 on The Practice of Feeling Pain is far more valuable than the overly fair price of the book.

Chronic pain joined me as a resident of my body sixteen years ago. It resides in both legs. Pain’s cousin Arthur Itis moved in somewhat later. Famous medical clinics failed in the solution department. Eventually—after four or five years—pain and I reached a truce. We became reluctant friends.

Perhaps the book of Job is the most dramatic story in history of God breaking into pain. Pain is only a player in the book. The real theme is trust in God’s integrity.

For the first thirty-seven chapters Job challenges God’s justice as he pleads for an encounter with God to present his case.

Then it happens.

God breaks into Job’s pain. Perhaps for a mega-second Job sees hope in the receipt of an answer.

However, rather than answers, God begins with questions. Forty-three questions in a row to be exact. The obvious unspoken answer to each question was Job didn’t have a clue.

After Job covers his mouth and admits his own question was too tiny to bring up in the presence of the Almighty, God peppers him with 20 more question to which Job’s silent answer could only be no I didn’t understand.

God never answers Job’s pain, loss, and suffering, questions. He breaks into his pain to teach Job to trust God in every circumstance.

Here’s what I think.

My pea size brain sits at Job’s campfire.

I’ve read Scripture cover to cover and book upon book in an attempt to answer the riddle of pain. The answer eludes me.

The best I can figure out pain is one consequence of the fall. It is both good and bad. Co-authors Phillip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand wrote a fascinating book on The Gift of Pain.

Dr Brand reminds me of the obvious. Pain makes me let go of a hot pan rather than holding on to cook my flesh.

Pain alerts me to care for my body to maintain life and health. Indeed pain is a safety mechanism.

That said, it still does not address chronic pain that seems to reside without purpose.

Perhaps, it causes me to look forward with greater anticipation to the next reality of a painless body in God’s renewed creation.

The apostle Paul gives me a clue in his second letter to the Corinthian believers. Pain can draw me to God and help me to be a connection point between Jesus and others.
He prompts me to trust in the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

He continues with a teaching that pain, suffering, and distress, when lived out within the context of walking with the Holy will produce patient endurance.

I suspect when I allow God to break into pain, He will bring a growth factor unavailable through any other means.

I wish that I could be more like Job and live with my hand over my mouth in the realization that God is even grander than I can possibly imagine.

It might just be possible that the One who created the fountains of the deep is big enough to stand by His promise to refrain from giving me more than I can handle.

I would love to hear your own reflections upon times when God broke into your encounters with pain.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – A GodReflection on God Breaks Into Pain.
Gary@Godreflection.org. http://www.MakeYourVisionGoViral.com