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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: PAIN (04/21/22)
It’s been a privilege to work with people for over fifty years – firstly in five years of counselling clients with wide-ranging disabilities or other challenges and helping them to find suitable employment. Yet this was only preparation, as God was calling me to pastoring, so I could serve people across the whole spectrum of their highest and lowest moments.

Now, after five decades of pastoring, I still don’t know why pain is part of the package for so many people. I do know that pain will never have the final say, yet even as I write this, my heart is aching for those whose pain has run so deep for so long – people I know well and care for deeply.

According to CS Lewis, author of The Screwtape Letters, “we may ignore pleasure, but pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains, as his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

However, these folks could never be accused of being deaf to God’s call. So where are the answers?

Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist dies for such a frivolous reason…

Missionaries lose their lives so brutally after giving up everything else to serve…

Colleagues whose ministries are more effective than mine could ever be, are struck down with diseases that dismantle their effectiveness and take their lives…

So, does God send this pain?

No, because evil has tainted our world, to spread its attacks beyond the guilty and to indiscriminately besmirch the innocent as well. Yet God’s call is for us to sensitively permeate the damage with the fragrance of his grace and truth, to be agents of his healing touch for the hurting and of his redemption for the guilty.

This is behind Jesus’ urge us to focus on responding to God’s call, most notably when his disciples asked about what sin had caused a man to be born blind(1), or in response to news that a falling tower in Siloam had killed eighteen people(2).

It’s been an adventure to encourage people’s response to God’s love and see them grow through their pain and then to empathise with others going through similar challenges.

Ministry is always easier when we know it’s humanly impossible, but I know how easy it is for our compassion to trick us. This trick is to overstep our human limits for those hurts weigh on us, so we try to do what only God can do - and find ourselves ironically making things worse for them and for ourselves.

“My God, why have you forsaken me?” cried Jesus from the cross, evoking the prayer from Psalm 22:1, for he felt so cut off from the Father. Yet at that moment. God was never closer to the deepest levels of our suffering, as he took the full extent of our pain and sin while preparing Jesus for death and resurrection.

It’s true that Jesus’ resurrection came only three days after his agony, while ours may be years away, but his return to life says that pain and death itself don’t have the last word. Reaching through our pain, he opens the door for eternity for us – whoever and wherever we are – so we may keep growing into fresh dimensions of grace that will never end.

Pain is real. We can’t wish it away, but we need to remember that our enemy is defeated. He is a bad loser, and like all bad losers, he loves attention. This why he wants us to be distracted by all that he’s doing wrong, instead of staying focused on how God redeems our pain and turns it into creative, credible, and humble ways to serve others in his name.

And why no specific answers to those questions that I raised earlier?

Simply because God’s answers aren’t found in words alone, for if information were all we needed, the gospel could only work for intellectual, articulate types. Thankfully, God invites us to live more deeply; with him through all our questions and doubts; so, despite our pain and our imperfections, we may release his gentleness in not crushing the broken flax or quench the smoking wick – as Isaiah’s prophecy(3) describes the damaged people all around us.

Pain - it's part of the package, but only temporarily...

1 John 9:1
2 Luke 13:4
3 Isaiah 42:3
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This article has been read 195 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Laurie Kiel 
04/28/22
As a pastor for fifty years you bring a breadth and depth to this topic having ministered to so many hurting people over the decades.

You wrote “I do know that pain will never have the final say,” Amen to that!

One tiny thing I believe there is a stray semicolon between deeply and with in
“Thankfully, God invites us to live more deeply; with him”

You have a well crafted title, so important. I loved the repetition of the “p’s” and how you repeated it in your final paragraph with an important addition. An excellent essay on a difficult topic. Well done.
Stephen Kimball
04/29/22
That is so well said…now if I could only burn that truth into my forgetful little human brain. Thanks for this entry.
Mariane Holbrook
04/30/22
Beautiful ~ This particular sentence of yours is a keeper so I'll print it and use it for a bookmark in my Bible:

"Yet God’s call is for us to sensitively permeate the damage with the fragrance of his grace and truth, to be agents of his healing touch for the hurting and of his redemption for the guilty."

I once listened to a crippled but godly woman speak on the subject of pain. Her frail body was riddled with pain, yet from her face I saw a glow that only a saint of God could possess. She closed with this:

"If I had to choose between grace and healing, I'd choose grace every time. Healing is only temporary, but grace is eternal." Amen and amen.

Your entry is full of compassion and kindness. God bless it to comfort many who may need it now.

Laurie Bahlke
05/02/22
Your entry touched me deeply and I can understand as I too work with people and witness their hurts, disappointments, trauma. Your entry reminded me that pain is indeed temporary, and that respite and grace can be found with Jesus. Thank you for such an inspiring piece and for the important work you do in serving others.
Verna Cole Mitchell 
05/02/22
Such wisdom you have gained as a pastor, and how clearly you show that while pain is a horrible evil at this time, it does not come from God, and it will not be our master. The pain and suffering of Jesus, along with His resurrection, won for ua a peace in heaven. Thank you for your inspirational discourse.
Linda Goergen
05/04/22
Such a well written, insightful, encouraging, ministering message! I live with chronic pain and sometimes on the worse days, it’s hard to understand why God allows it. Especially when you see unsaved living and enjoying pain free lives...but ultimately I don’t have to understand, just remember God loves me and like Job, I must keep holding on to God above all else!! Thank you for this! Well done!
C D Swanson 
05/06/22
Wow, Noel!

Your words truly describe the inner workings of God's word and promises. And your lifelong experience of ministering to others, is all part of the plan, especially when it's " calling" which you clearly were gifted with.

Excellent message, powerfully written and delivered.

Thank you for sharing this with us which no doubt has touched many hearts.

God bless~