Where Were You?

We can’t discount the horribleness of the evil that is happening around us especially when it hits us really close to home. When you are the one affected or somebody close to you. Especially when we don’t find any meaning or sense in the pain, loss and/or suffering. Sometimes, it is easier to accept when tragedy happens to other people especially the “bad” people and we will just say “karma.”

If we come to think of it, we are always double standard. We are easy to judge who is “bad” or not and who is deserving. We probably don’t realize that our self defined standard of morality is broken because of our own sins. This is the reason why people when confronted with this reality resist the message. Because of sin, our eyes are calloused and our hearings are selective. The scriptures speak of this not only once but on several occasions across many generations - Isaiah 6:10: Jeremiah 5:21: Ezekiel 12:2: Matthew 13:15: Acts 28:27 ... “you have eyes and ears but fail to see and hear.”

Like Job, the easiest way out to unburden once self is put the blame on God. If God is good, why does he allow pain and suffering happen to good people? Why in the sense he seems to not care? As we see, this issue of pain and suffering has been asked since time immemorial. What is fascinating is how God answered Job in his questions – Job 38 4-7:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

If I am to tear the pages of the bible in Luke chapters 22 and 23 and hand it over to somebody who has not read any single paragraph of the bible lest, not know the Christian God, what would he say? If the highlights of our lives are just zeroed in on our own misery, pain and suffering, are we not missing to tell the whole story here? How about the joy you have brought to your parents when your born, you had your first step? How about the people in your life which you have shown kindness and are grateful that have met you? Are those to be taken for granted? Are those joy and beauty experienced by others and in your own experience of joy and beauty that others brought to your life inferior and subservient to the pain and suffering you have now? Has the beauty of your life stopped because of your pain?

We are a generation of confused people. Our biggest problem is we listen to the lies of the devil and we are easily deceived. There are even some from among our ranks, promising to ease our pain. This is the reason why we don’t know the value of sacrifice and sacrificial offering. We have been deceived that pain is all bad and we forgot that it is a gift from God. This is the reason why those who have colon cancer, 97% of the time when it is discovered they are already terminally ill. Why because you don’t feel any pain. If you don’t feel the pain of appendicitis, you will die too.

Pain is a gift, sometimes it is temporary to wake us up and tell us there is something wrong. I need to repair my relationship with my spouse, children, neighbor… and sometimes it is permanent and God given. I don’t have an explanation how he chooses the bearer and I don’t want to attempt to know. The only thing I know is that it is meant to bring glory to His name. The only attitude necessary here then is to thank God for trusting you to give him this glory.

Our life with its joy and pain are all beautiful. It should shout joy and glory to God and let us all be thankful. The Israelites didn’t reach the promised land until they are done wandering in the desert for 40 years (time of completion). We too, when God deemed our life completed here on earth, we will enter the promised land where sin, death, pain and suffering have no more sting – eternally!