"If God Loved Me I Wouldn't Have Pain." Really?

“If God Loved Me I Wouldn’t Have Pain.” Really?

If God Loved Me I Wouldnt Have Pain. Really?
photo credit: ptufts

I’ve heard it said that if God were all-loving, He wouldn’t possibly allow pain. And while there’s a lot of apologetics about this topic, I recently heard one really good one from my pastor, Steve Dewitt. I don’t have the exact quote, but you can listen to the sermon here. Too sum up, he basically challenges us to put the hypothesis of ‘a good god wouldn’t allow pain’ to the test when looking at the person whom God loved the most: Christ. Did Christ, God’s own son, have a life without pain? Absolutely not! Ridiculed by others, sought to be imprisoned by the Pharisees, leading to his capture, mockery of a trial, then a severe scourging (watch ‘The Passion of the Christ’ if you don’t know what a scourging is. Needless to say, it’s really brutal), after which he is forced to carry his own cross down the street and up a hill to where the Romans nailed him to it, then hung him there until he was dead. Sound like a life without pain? You see, the hypothesis of a good God not allowing pain fails right in the example of Jesus. The hypothesis is wrong. God, in fact, disciplines those He loves:

6 “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” (Hebrews 12:6)

Christianity doesn’t suport the idea that believers have all their problems whisked away and you like a care-free lifestyle. Far from it. In fact, we are promised the opposite. Jesus tell us that, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

So then, what’s the point of the pain that God is causing us? The answer lies in Hebrews 12:7-11:

7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

I’m sure anyone who has kids can relate to this passage. Kids need to be disciplined. They just don’t seem to listen, behave properly, etc etc. So much like grown-ups in the eyes of the Lord. We sin. We don’t listen to Him, nor to we obey when we do listen! We need discipline, and God knows it. And that’s why there’s pain. But take heart, it’s only temporary. And the lessons learned from it are given to us so that we may become more like Christ.

April 13 2008 08:38 pm | Christianity and Pain and Problem of Evil and The Bible