“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin
| This past Sunday I told my community group that God’s love language often feels like He punches me in the nose and says, “Trust me, it’s how I show love, and it’s good for ya!” Um, thank you… and… praise God? The book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman, is a perennial best seller because it speaks to how we best give and receive love in a relationship. Chapman says the five languages are: – receiving gifts, – quality time, – words of affirmation, – acts of service- and physical touch. He left off a sixth theological love language called “getting the everlasting shit kicked out of you.” Can I get an amen? By far this is one of the biggest struggles for secularists and religious folk when it comes to believing in and trusting God. In other words, it’s the classic question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is needed to follow-up my past Friday post Grief is a Wild Animal. A good friend and mentor was concerned that people would misread and see God as the harbinger of both good and bad. In other words, does God deliver the pain in the form of cancer, a tragic car accident, or a spouse who prefers the bed of another? The answer is one for the millennium, and never easy to process. On this side of heaven, if I had a wife, and punched her in the nose and said, “Babe, trust me, this is what’s best, you’ll understand someday,” that relationship wouldn’t be envisioned as one of devoted love. Yet the divine Lord of the universe does appear to deliver seasons of hurt that can last much longer than a black eye. He does seem to be the abusive lover who tortures us at times. The fact is, He’s not. The most difficult thing for our finite minds to comprehend is why a sovereign God allows pain to occur. Yes, I know it feels like splitting hairs. What’s the difference between delivering and allowing pain? The theological reality is 1) the world is broken from original sin way back with those crazy Adam and Eve kids, 2) there is an enemy whose sole purpose is to wreak havoc, and 3) people are born with an inherent cancer known as sin. I don’t like the word “sin,” it’s become a bastardized word in our culture. However, the fact is, you do make mistakes (my preferred word choice). Often those mistakes are blatant and egregious, and afterwards you feel overwhelming guilt and a need to apologize. That’s another way of describing sin. Back to the theology. Much bigger brains with much higher pay-grades have wrestled with why God allows evil and pain in our lives. It appears utterly random, always disruptive, and creates a tepid set of sailor’s legs when it comes to trusting that the Lord has our best interest at heart. May I simply say outloud that it is absolutely ok to doubt and question, and yes, to be disappointed in God. We’re human, and to pretend to play the good little Christian who praises God when inside a slew of f-bombs are emanating; sets you up for an eggshell relationship with Him. What I’ve personally experienced with loss and disappointment is a deeper sense of life, and a more lucid understanding of my limits. It’s what Baldwin says above in the quote: pain helps us understand and empathize with others in a way that winning and happiness can’t touch. God does know that for us to be fully-formed people, we need all the emotions played out in a lifetime, including the soul-sucking hurt we want to avoid. Life can’t be a constant uptick to the right. The gravity of pain does enrich us in the long run, much as we hate it in the short. Read Psalms, read the book of Job, and allow yourself to shake your fist at things that don’t make sense. Two books I recommend are The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis, and If God is Good by Randy Alcorn. Neither are a walk in the park, but both answer tough questions of how a loving God can and will knit together a beautiful tapestry out of bloody knots. Never-never land won’t happen in this lifetime, God didn’t plan it that way. I’m sorry we have to experience pain and grief. I also trust in the midst of doubts that the Lord will reconcile all the hurt. See ya next time. ML |