MONDAY

TRUTH: God never wastes a hurt.

James 1:2-3
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”

Everyone experiences pain. It is the common ground on which all humanity stands. Every living person is in the process of pain management. This week we will discuss the problems of evil, pain, and suffering. This is a real life issue of the heart for both believers and unbelievers. However, this is a problem that must be resolved with the mind.

In fact, the problem of evil is considered “the most serious intellectual obstacle that stands between many people and religious faith.” From life’s first cry, the human experience is one of pain for both the child and mother. In addition, death involves pain, often for the dying and always for the people who are left behind to grieve the loss of a loved one.

Perhaps more obvious and disturbing is the moment by moment life experience that is plagued with sickness, injury, acts of violence, and other various pains and evils that lead to an unavoidable question. Why?

“If we follow the course on which humanity has been led, and become Christians, we then have the ‘problem’ of pain.” C. S. Lewis, one of the most influential theists on current Christian philosophy, worked out this academic issue with clarity in his book, The Problem of Pain. However, later in his life, the death of his wife moved him to challenge his own philosophical beliefs.

“Don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.” Lewis wrote, “I not only live each day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is the place I can’t avoid. I mean my own body.”

TRUTH: God never wastes a hurt.