Does God Have a Purpose for our Pain?
Dr. John Ankerberg: Michael, I want to talk to the people that have been in Christian meetings where they’ve been told they didn’t have enough faith, that’s why God didn’t heal them. There must be some secret hidden sins they still haven’t confessed, and that’s what’s kept them away. And some of them have left the faith; some of them have become completely defeated. I want to go to the Bible to show some verses that I hope will encourage them and bring them back to the Lord. Pick any one you want. If you want to start with Job, start with Job.
Dr. Michael Easley: You know, the book of Job to me is remarkable in a lot of ways. It’s the oldest book in the Bible which most people forget. It’s one of the hardest books in the Bible, and it deals with the problem of pain and suffering. And it’s one of these,… it’s so obvious we miss it, that this is in fact the message that begins Scripture. Now arguably Genesis is the creation account, but this is the oldest text we have. So I always go back to that as a reminder.
A long insufferable book; starts wonderfully; horrible long story; it ends well. But there are some choice passages in here. One in particular where he says, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord,” in Job 1:21. And so he’s acknowledging God’s given us something, and He’s taken it, but I’m still going to bless God. I’m not going to be mad at God. I’m not going to question His judgment. I’m going to declare He gave this to us and He’s taken it away. In all this, it says, he did not blame God. Now, he asked God questions, but he didn’t blame Him.
And then, perhaps one of the verses that I love so much, John. It’s in response to his wife’s comment to him about his suffering. And he says, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” And some years ago I wrote in the margin of my Bible, “MJE, you must accept adversity, you must accept a life of pain.” And the declarative nature of, if God gave us something good we would certainly be thankful for it; if God allows us to suffer intractable pain, disease, disappointment, can we not accept that?
And that goes back to what the book is about. The book is about a man who had everything going for him. God allows Satan to affect him, he loses everything substantial, he himself is ill. And so we see him with this, the whole story is doubtful with these little glimpses of faith. And as the story ends, it’s the story of faith with some little glimpses of doubt.
And to me it’s a remarkable picture of the Christian life. There’s times when we live overwhelmed by doubt with a little flicker of faith, and times we live with great faith but, as Joni and I have shared, there are days that are horrible, there are days that are discouraging and depressing. And we want to say “Why, Lord,” but we say, “How, Lord?”
Of course, a passage we’ve talked about many times would be Paul’s. On the hinge of all the things that happen to him in 2 Corinthians 11, he then speaks of the thorn in his flesh. This is Paul speaking in 2 Corinthians 12:7, “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself,” which is a striking rationale—“so I wouldn’t make myself out to be more,” Paul says—“there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected in weakness.’” And then Paul’s comment, “Most gladly therefore I will rather boast about my weakness so that,” purpose, “so that the power of Christ might dwell in me.” So you’ve got this great picture of, I mean, the apostles’ apostle, and he’s… whatever the affliction is, a lot of speculation, God doesn’t remove it.
And we could look at other martyrs in the New Testament. We look at Stephen who was stoned to death for preaching a phenomenal message, James, who’s killed brutally. We can look at all these heroes of the faith. And unfortunately, you know, John, I often wonder: people that promulgate this health/wealth thing, I often wonder what God’s going to say to them. It’s kind of chilling to me, because we’re overlooking key figures like Job, like Paul, like James, like Stephen. To say God’s always going to do that, you just have to have enough faith. Paul didn’t have enough faith? Paul’s chosen by God to be the emissary of the gospel to the world. And yet in these situations God doesn’t heal them.
And I just circle back to one thing Joni said about Mark 1. I think it’s striking that every time Christ did heal someone it was a physical picture of a spiritual condition. It’s not just that we want healing from pain and suffering and cancer, it’s a physical picture. You’re blind, you’re spiritually blind; you’re deaf, you’re spiritually deaf; you’re lame, you’re spiritually lame. And so all the miracles are a physical representation of what the real spiritual illness is. And that’s where He’s about healing us, not merely in the temporal world.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Joni, there’s been a verse that you have loved. It’s talking about delight yourself in the ways of the Lord. Talk about that verse.
Joni Eareckson Tada: Well, Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart.” Oh, John, for so long the desires of my heart, “Get me on my feet, God. Give me back use of my hands. Take away this pain.” I mean, these were the desires of my heart. And I would plead before God to remove these things. But He never did. And so I dug deeper. What am I missing? What do I need to see here in His Word? But the more I got into His Word, the more I saw God’s heart. And when I looked at Christ on the cross and saw Him paralyzed, nailed to that tree, empathizing with me, with compassion, with passion, with suffering, I just, I fell in love with Him afresh.
And the more I got to know this Jesus, this side of Jesus, the man of sorrows acquainted with my grief, the more I fell in love with Him, and the more His desires became my desires. Before you knew it I wasn’t looking to get on my feet, I was looking to please the Lord Jesus.
And what are His delights? Well, His delights are that His gospel will go forth, His kingdom will be advanced, that the family banner of God will be planted firmly in the soil of people’s hearts who are skeptic and cynics. These are God’s delights.
John, why doesn’t God heal? I think because when we do experience a healing we forget the Lord. We don’t need Him as urgently. But when we’re hurting and suffering, we wake up in the morning and say, “God, I need you.” And His heart goes out to people who come to Him in their affliction saying, “I cannot do this on my own. God, please help me.” And maybe that’s a good reason why He doesn’t heal physically; because He wants to, as Michael was saying, open our spiritual eyes, unplug our deaf spiritual ears, and get our lame spiritual feet walking in a new direction.
Extracted from our series, “Where is God When Life Hurts?” Slightly edited for publication. The entire series with Dr. Michael Easley and Joni Eareckson Tada is available through our online store at jashow.org.
