Wednesday | What I'm Reading
I like to read.
I need to read.
I communicate for a living.
That requires a full tank of thoughts.
On Wednesdays, I share my current reads.
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Where is God When it Hurts? (part 2)
Did pain exist before The Fall (the fatal bite of fruit that unlocked evil upon this world)?
When Eve was walking in the garden and stepped on a sharp stone, did she wince and withdraw her foot quickly? When Adam bumped his head on a low-hanging branch, did it hurt?
Yes.
I'm not sure when we adopted a bubble-wrap mentality toward pre-Fall life...a mindset that holds tightly to the idea that God loves His creation too much to ever let them experience pain. I do know why we adopted it...we assume pain is bad and know that God is good. In our math, a good God would never let us feel a bad hurt.
Yancey explains that in a world designed on predictable natural laws, pain is inevitable (baring constant supernatural intervention). This same world, based on predictable law, was also designed by God with the ability to make choices--free will. The improper exercise of free will (sin) introduced an element to the pain equation that did not exist before The Fall--suffering.
We need pain.
Pain is a gift.
Pain serves as a dummy-light on life's dashboard, letting us know that a problem exists. When yellow-jackets started stinking my body multiple times a couple weekends ago, God's gift to me was the warning light of pain. If I experienced no burning pain, hundreds of bees could have stung me and I could have been killed. The sting said run!
My view of pain changed dramatically after reading Where is God When it Hurts by Philip Yancey over twenty-five years ago. The chapter that impacted me most was chapter 3. In these pages, Yancey shares the work of Dr. Paul Brand, who spent his life working with those who suffer from Hansen's Disease (HD), known to us as leprosy.
My view of this disease was formed from Sunday School stories. To my young mind, the tragedy of the disease was missing body parts. I did not understand why they "fell off" (that's what I imagined...suddenly your nose, ear or finger would be laying on the ground).
The underlying issue of leprosy is insensitivity...a complete lack of pain sensations in the extremities. In the absence of pain, a person could reach into a fire and not feel pain, though their flesh is literally cooking.
This image started an important flip for me. Pain is not the problem any more than a screaming smoke detector is a curse. Pain is a gift screaming that a problem exists requiring my attention.
He writes, "Pain is not an afterthought, or God's great goof. Rather, it reveals a marvelous design that serves our bodies well. Pain is as essential to normal life, it could be argued, as eyesight or even good circulation. Without pain, as we shall see, our lives would be fraught with danger, and devoid of many basic pleasures."
The sensation of pain is not God's great goof; it is just the gift nobody wants.
This paragraph rings so true: "The typical American response to pain is to take an aspirin at the slightest ache and silence the pain. That approach only deals with the symptom of the problem. We dare not shut off the warning system without first listening to the warning."
There was pain before the fall. However, it is also true that The Fall introduced forms of pain not previously present in the garden: thorns and thistles, lies and betrayal, and death, both physical and eternal. These forms of pain are the result of a simple truth--God gave us the gift of free will and we abused His gift.
Yancey's book does not minimize pain. No one is suggesting a Spock-like, emotionless reaction to boo-boos and deep brokenness. What the book does is place pain in a proper perspective. Pain is a gift. It is not an unpleasantness to be avoided at all cost.
Yancey quotes CS Lewis, who called pain God's megaphone. Lewis profoundly stated that God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pain. He says pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
When my friend died in 1977, I felt deep pain. I did not understand until years later that the pain itself was not the problem. I wanted to eliminate the pain. Like many people, I wanted to deaden the symptom rather than deal with the real problem(s).
If you are in deep pain, I highly recommend this book. It is on my short shelf of works that radically changed my life. My thinking was adjusted. Proper behavior is rooted in right thinking. We do not act differently until we think differently (Romans 12:2).
When I am tempted to view pain as a curse, I imagine a leper with his hand in a fire. I am grateful that God wired me is such a way to quickly, reflexively pull my hand from the flames.
Pain is a gift. I'm not saying I like it, but I can now see its purpose. I hope the same for you.