Share the Pain

Friday 4/29/2016 4:20 AM

I hear a number of Christians talking about what they call God’s perfect plan for their life. It often includes finding a perfect spouse who satisfies their every need, having a perfect family with cute, obedient children, having a perfect fulfilling job that pays well, and so on. Churches and pastors often feed into this view and suggest that, if you become a Christian and can find God’s perfect will for your life, all your troubles will disappear and your life will be wonderful. There are a lot of churches filled with parishioners that have that view and, at the same time, there are large numbers of people leaving the church when they discover that their troubles don’t all disappear.

Today I read these words by Rueben Job, “Eugene Peterson pinpoints the trouble with praying: We are often asked to respond in ways that we never intended when we first began to pray. It matters little where or in what century we are called to live out our Christian life. The witness of those who have gone before informs my own experience, telling me that we are often taken to places where we receive unwarranted accolades and to other places where we receive unwarranted suffering and pain. A disciple, one who chooses to be student and follower of Jesus, is not a ‘self-made person’ and is not on a personally designed journey. The key word in this theme is taken. Just as Jesus was taken into the wilderness after his baptism, so we are taken into the experiences of discipleship that we do not necessarily choose for our selves. We choose to follow Jesus and then Jesus chooses where we will go. It is that simple. The saving truth here is not that we are taken where we do not want to go; rather the saving truth is that we are not alone. There is One who leads us and goes with us. Jesus arose from baptism and ‘the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness’. But even there the angels (messengers of God) were with him and tended to his needs. While we may not choose the place to God, we can choose to remain with the One who sends us and there find comfort, companionship, grace, peace, and joy.”

In his book Seeking the Face of God, Gary Thomas addresses the same issue. “Those who have gone before us have left a clear witness: We may seek God or we may seek ease, but we cannot seek both. The road we travel is anything but easy. It is true that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives, but it is equally true that the plan is often fraught with tension and uncertainty, and with emotional, spiritual, and physical pain.”

I believe that those within the family of faith need to represent the life we experience with God in a more realistic way. We need to share our own struggles, doubts, fears, and pain with others. This will accomplish two things; we will accurately represent the life of a believer as one who struggles with God and we will be able to encourage one another and share the pain and hurt that is such a big part of life. When we put on a happy face and build a façade that suggests that our lives are all wonderful we make people believe they could never be good enough to be a part of the church at large because their lives don’t measure up. In reality, we all struggle with our faith, we all experience pain and disappointment, and we all fail to live the life God calls us to live. What we need to share is the good news of the gospel; that God is loving and compassionate and does not leave us to wallow in the messiness of this world alone. He accompanies us through it all by embodying himself in the lives of other believers. It’s time the church becomes the hands, feet, and arms of love and compassion, seeking out those who are hurting and wrapping them with that love.