Sunday, November 8, 2015

Pain

I am going to write this week on the problem of pain.  Some of what I write this week may bother your brain.  Sometimes our brains need to be bothered.  I believe that there is a good deal of sandlot theology out there in the Christian world, and certainly a lot of it on the issue of pain in the world.  Sandlot theologies are beliefs that people pick up randomly along the way.  They are ideas that we run across that we collect for some reason, that don't work well when put under the pressure of real life. 

Good theology makes sense.  It points people away from pat answers and back to God.  There is no magic pill in this life, only God.

We all have pain, we all experience pain.  Sometimes there are no good answers and our best hope is to lean into our heavenly Father.  Actually that is all that we ever really have, is the experience that even in our brokenness, we are complete in him.  Let go of your platitudes and rest in him.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of our senses, I read a wonderful statement regarding faith (which always helps in times of pain.) James H. O'Keefe, M.D. in St. Luke's Health System's most recent edition of "From the Heart" said "it has been said that faith is seeing light with your heart, when all your eyes can see is darkness."

And to your reference about sometimes pain cannot be explained, I can only think that there is a type of pain that runs so deep, that even our eyes cannot see the light of faith. But God is always and always will be there, even when we can't muster up faith. Pain just doesn't change who God is.