God uses pain…
I have been struggling with pain lately. I see so much of it around me. I guess, in my line of work, seeing people dealing with pain and loss is pretty common. That said, I know that many people are out there struggling in silence. “What is God doing?” they ask. “Why do our prayers not seem to be answered?”
I do not pretend to fully understand everything that God does or does not do. I do know this – God is faithful. Romans 8:28 says that he works in all thing for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. The challenge that faces all of us is to trust Him. To put in his hands what we are going through and let Him be God. He does not give up on us even when we give up on Him. Sometimes we do not understand why things happen. That is okay. We don’t always need to understand. What matter is that we know in whose hands we are – God’s.
I want to share one story with you in this letter. This happened close to a year and a half ago but it stands out to me every time I meet people struggling with pain.
It has to do with a young family who went through some serious challenges as the man of the family became ill and was dying from post operative infections. I found myself connected with them through an act of God. What happened has left me amazed and with more understanding of how much we resist God and why painful circumstances are often the only way through which we come to surrender to Christ.
I walked into a hospital room some time ago for a visit with a young man who was supposed to be recovering from surgery. He and his wife were the only one’s present. Within a short while it became obvious that he was not doing well. He has been through surgery and was now battling post-operative infections. The infections were preventing his sutures from healing and also preventing him from taking in any food. Simply put, he was starving to death in front of his family. As we sat by the bedside I prayed about what to say. It seemed that God wanted us to look at the sufferings of Job.
Three things stand out about Job. The first is that the devil was involved. The important thing to notice in the book of Job is that God never, at any time in the story, gave the devil a free hand in his attacks on Job. Both times that the devil came asking to assault Job, God limited what he could do – “You can do this much, and no more!” (my paraphrase).
Second, it was revealed that Job had a character flaw. That flaw came out in chapter 33. Elihu (the only one of Job’s friends whose advice to Job received God’s approval) named it for him. Job’s sin was self-righteousness. He claimed that he was innocent and that God was not treating him fairly (Job 33:8-10). Elihu made it clear that there was a purpose for the struggle that Job was going through. He says that God allows these things to happen to a man to “turn his soul back from the pit and that the light of life might shine on him.” (Job 33:29-30). God allowed this to happen to Job in order to bring his hidden sin to light, sin that was leading Job away from God. God’s purpose in all of this was freedom for Job from his sin. Sounds a bit like Galatians 5:1.
Third, God did never did explain himself to Job. Often people struggle with this, wondering why their misfortunes are happening to them. What did we do wrong? How can we fix it? I have come to realize that we cannot just “fix” our sinfulness. Sometimes the only way is to have God refine that sin out of us. That means to make our sin so obvious and revolting that we are really ready to be done with it. The way God did this with Job was to let Satan touch his possessions and his body in such a way as to bring Job to the end of himself. Often it is only when we are at the end of ourselves that we are really ready to trust God. Sometimes God does not explain himself and we never know the “why” of it all. In Job’s case, God simply said to Job, “I am God. Who is like me?” (my paraphrase). The reality is that sometimes God does not explain his actions to us. All we can do is trust that he loves us and that what he does in our lives is in his hands and geared for our good as Romans 8:28 tells us.
As we talked of this, in that hospital room, I sensed a leading to say to this young man that whatever it was that he had said against God in his struggle and pain, God wanted to tell him that it was alright. He was forgiven. God was not holding that against him.
At that moment the power of God filled the room. All of us began to weep. I knew that the time of his suffering was done. I stood by his bed and spoke those words. “It is over.” A picture appeared in my mind’s eye of his unhealed sutures and I had a leading to pray commanding them to knit in Jesus’ name. We commanded the spirit of infirmity and the spirit of torment and accusation to leave in Jesus’ name. We also prayed that the Lord would wash the infections away in the blood of Jesus. We asked the Holy Spirit to come and fill him and the room as well. The sense of God’s power in that place was awesome. We finished praying and immediately I had another leading – I was to leave. I said my goodbyes and left.
His condition reversed immediately. The infection disappeared and by the following morning he was asking for food. His weight loss reversed, his sutures healed. He began to gain weight and shortly thereafter he was released to go home. The healing was amazing! The power of God in that room on that afternoon was awesome! But there is more…
Just like in the end of Job, when Job surrendered into the hands of God, God restored this young man and gave him much more than he had in the beginning. I spoke with him some months later and he shared something that made the whole purpose of his suffering make sense. He told me that his relationship with God started in that hospital room the afternoon that we prayed. Just before he got sick he had said to himself that he had all he wanted – the perfect wife, child and job. He didn’t need anything else. It was then that he got sick and his journey into pain - and into God - began. As I listened to him, I suddenly knew why God had wanted us to look at the story of Job. In the pain that this young man went through during his sickness, his self-centeredness came to the surface and God became real to him. His need for Christ became real to him. God made himself known to this young man. I was so blessed in that room to see God brush away this man’s sin and simply love him and accept him regardless of what he had done or said against God. This is the gospel in action, and against this the enemy cannot stand.
I know that many people struggle to understand why God allows pain. Some disbelieve that anything painful comes from God. Books have been written to explain why if we only believed enough there would be no pain or sickness. I suppose that, in one sense, it is true – if we really, fully believed everything would be great. The reality that the bible teaches however is that often we are not even able to believe. The bible says that we are a faithless people. We have our own agendas and purposes for life. We are stubborn and self centered and this is what God has to work with. Sometimes the only way to get through to us is to allow a season of pain. God in his love for us and in his desire to keep us from self-destruction will allow suffering if that is what it takes to get through to us. This is what Job’s young friend, Elihu, meant when he stated that “God does all these things to a man to turn his soul back from the pit that the light of light may shine on him” (Job 33:29-30). May God bring each of us to a place of brokenness that results in deeper surrender to Him.
Remember… although the enemy sometimes has a place to attack us, he has not been given free reign to do what He wants. God is on the throne. We are at God’s mercy. He loves us and cannot fail us!
Be blessed!
Boyd
.