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God’s Purpose in Your Pain

It’s after midnight on Sunday evening. Everyone in my neighborhood’s most likely in bed. But me? I’m walking the path around the man-made lake in our subdivision in pitch darkness.

Hopefully, everyone else is asleep, because I’m spitting and cussing at God.

What’s wrong? Enough that I’m wondering why God thinks I would still be talking to Him.

For starters, it’s the time of the year right after Easter when church attendance drops off. Evidently, the resurrection of Christ is the cue that it’s OK to use Sunday as everyone’s vacation day.

For them, Jesus coming out of the grave is some signal, maybe like a groundhog seeing it’s shadow…

So I’ve preached another message to the ones left at home, complete with the distractions of those who just can’t stop moving or reaching for another muffin from our snack area, or the guy who stepped out to take what I’m sure was the world’s most important phone call. Then there are the folks whose Instagram photo announces yet another weekend out of town. Nothing wrong with a vacation, but as the only pastor in this young church, I see very few of them.

Add to this the hundred other frustrations I’m not supposed to admit to…because I’m a pastor. People are allowed to get frustrated with a pastor anytime, but if he gets upset at them, he’s derelict in his duty of loving everyone. So you end up being nice to people you know have been talking about you, and helpful to people who don’t even show up at church anymore. That’s because if you don’t, you’re a bad pastor.

But in addition to all this minor whining, our family’s actually been going through a somewhat major crisis where we’ve asked our church for prayer and support. Happily, they’ve responded by wrapping their arms around us and loving us over-abundantly!

Even so, right now I’m scared and tired, and starting to feel a bit desperate. In times like these, I can’t see any through streets – only dead ends.

So I did what I always do when I’m overwhelmed – I go for a walk with God. But frankly, I’m not just talking to God. I’m mentally and spiritually screaming my head off at Him!

You see, I know exactly what He’s doing and I don’t find it’s cute anymore. He’s pushing me to the extreme, farther than I’ve been before. And He’s doing it for some elusive goal He has for me…one that He probably won’t bother to share anytime soon!

You may say, “Oh, pastor, that’s just Satan working on you!”

That sounds good, but here’s the problem: I know nothing can come at me that doesn’t come through God first. My trials and tribulations may have originated in the pits of hell, but the gates of heaven are doing little to get in the way of them now.

I’m at that place – you’ve probably been there – where I’m completely spent, discouraging and wishing I could quit and run away. And there’s good old God, looking on and expecting me to take it like a champ!

I sit down on a bench to ponder things and complain some more. I check down at my cell phone, and there’s a text from a guy who wants to critique the last book I wrote. It was on reasons to believe in God, and he’s a skeptic. Seems he feels led to tell me everything that’s wrong with it…on a public post, where everyone else in the world can see it!

He’s a guy who mad at God and has decided to run away from anything to do with faith. How ironic to get his text at this moment, just as I want to run from God as well!

There are times I’d love to walk away – say “forget it” and move on. That would show them all, and most of all, show God! They’d all know how much they’d misused and hurt me!

Think I’m trying to play the martyr here? Absolutely, I am!

I am rolling in self-pity, self-loathing and about 100 other phrases with the word “self” in them, and I make no apologies for it at all. I’ve been trying hard to do good and be Jesus is a dark world, and all I’ve got to show for it is a bucket load of pain now.

So I’ve earned this pity party, and I am determined to have a good wallow in it!

And here’s the crazy part: while I’d really like to really stick it to God and run from Him to show Him how angry I am at Him for putting me through all this, I’m doing the very opposite right now. No matter how mad I am at Him, I still can’t help talking to Him and going to Him for comfort…from the very things He’s sent to discomfort me!

I’m out here on this walk so angry at God for what He’s allowed in my life…and running right to Him at the same time. I’m seeking comfort from the very One who’s wounding me. Irony to the max!

“God has delivered me to the ungodly,

And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, but He has shattered me;

He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;

He has set me up for His target,

His archers surround me.

He pierces my heart and does not pity;

He pours out my gall on the ground.

He breaks me with wound upon wound;

He runs at me like a warrior.”

– Job 16:11-14

More than anyone else, I see God as my opponent because I know it is He who allows this chaos into my life. But the chief difference between those of us who believe like Job did and those who don’t is this:

The doubters look at the evil and pain in the world and see it as proof there’s no God.

But the faithful look at the very same evil and pain, and wonder how in the world anyone could survive without a God to run to.

I feel awkward saying I have a love/hate relationship with God. Of course, I could never hate Him, but there’s an ambivalence I feel toward Him at times. That ambivalence comes from His insistence on using pain, incredible pain, buckets full of pain to be the main change-agent in the lives of people.

Sorry but that stinks. It’s a lousy tool to use on people. And yet, it works brilliantly and more effectively than anything else I’ve witnessed.

I sat in my Worldwide Ministry Office (Starbucks) the other night with an old, dear friend – one of the finest, most faithful Christian men I’ve ever known. As we began to catch up, he dropped a bomb on me that God had just dropped in his life: his marriage was over, his wife was leaving him.

Forget the kids, who are reeling in pain. Forget this man who’s stayed faithful for his entire marriage. Forget the home they’d built and the residue it may leave on the marriages of their kids in years to come.

I realize we all have free will, and here the wife exerted hers despite what God may have wished. But I’m sitting listening to my friend, seeing the pain ooze from every pour, and know there are no words I have to help him.

He’s about to go through hell, and he knows it. And it makes me mad, because while I’m sure he’s not perfect, he did most of the big things right…probably better than I would have done them.

And yet, his faith did not preserve his marriage.

All those sermons they listened to together, the couples classes, maybe even a marriage seminar or Christian counseling.  All the things we’re supposed to do to be faithful to God on our part, thinking He’ll in turn keep up His end of the deal and preserve us.

Instead, disaster and carnage. And as a friend and pastor, I just want to yell at God and say, “So what good has it done my friend to follow you all these years if it couldn’t keep his marriage together? I don’t like representing You sometimes, because there are times it seems you don’t keep Your end of the deal.”

It’s times like these when I start feeling like a used car salesman, trying to dump a spiritual lemon on another sucker. I start to see the anger seething beneath my book critics skepticism toward my God. I begin to understand why people, even pastors, sometimes throw up their hands and walk away.

Except…

God never promised me serving Him would make life easier, only more meaningful. He in fact promised me pain…but with a purpose. He said I’d always know that any pain He allowed to touch me was for a holy purpose. It wouldn’t be random, but strategic. And somehow, it would all work out in the end for my good.

God never promised me “my version of good” (an easy path to success), but instead “His good”. And His good is all about the person I become, not my comfort or the things supporting me.

And also, except…

The pain wakes me up from my self-absorbed existence and forces me to focus on God. The same emotional discomfort that made me want to curse at God made me want to run into His arms for comfort. And as a result, I get something better than all the cheap, happy things I wanted in my life…

I get Him, in a depth of meaning like I’d never known before.

The pain is drawing my friend even closer to Christ. Though a committed Christian, I can see how this will deepen his faith to a greater level. It will give him a ministry to others going through the same pain that he couldn’t have had before. And in the end, he will have “shared in Christ’s sufferings” and have a camaraderie with the Suffering Savior that I may even grow to envy.

I’m sad some can’t seem to believe, to trust God. I see the same inequities they do, and understand their arguments better than they think I do. Just like Job’s wife suggested, there are times I just want to “curse God and die”.

But how could I curse the one in whose pain I find such purpose? Whose crucible of training, though excruciating at times, builds in me a supernatural strength that becomes ironically most potent when I’m at my weakest point?

Hell would truly be to go through the many pains and disappointments of this life and in the end find there was no purpose behind them. But in God, my old friend will eventually find comfort and miraculous transformation because of that very pain, as will I.

So I walk on in this darkness around my neighborhood lake. My cussing at God has subsided. There’s a release now, a quiet resting even though I know He’s made no promises the pain will stop anytime soon. But I rest because He’s says He has a reason for it, and the strength to endure will be dispensed as I need it.

Ironically, I rest now in the embrace of the same arms that deliver me daily doses of cruelty, trusting somehow that whether I perceive it or not, there’s a divine purpose in that pain.

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Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.

Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.