Devotional Time with God

It’s a question that I’ve heard and asked before.   God’s nature is good, but why does He allow pain and suffering to befall on humans?  We are His creation so wouldn’t we get the best treatment, all the time? Shouldn’t we be protected and safe all the time?  Throughout the bible, God’s people always get the shaft. Adam and Eve learned it the hard way when they ate the forbidden fruit.  Joseph was sold as a slave and thrown in jail because people were jealous and hated his righteousness.  Job was stripped down to nothing and his family was killed.

There are several reasons why God allows pain:

Free Will

For the longest time, I avoided that Jim Carrey movie called “God Almighty”.  I thought the title itself was a bit of a sacrilege and I heard the material was questionable.  Then I checked it out myself recently, and it turned out to be a good movie after all.  The one message that came from it was: God gave us free will, to do whatever we want.

Of course, free will does have consequences.  If misused, it can cause catastrophe, sadness, and pain.  Many times, God has given me the option to either obey or disobey Him.  I’ve chosen to disobey God frequently because I thought I knew better.   Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing.  It takes a lot of faith.  It takes a lot of grace from God.

Get My Attention

I found out that God whispers to me when times are good, and shouts to me when it’s not.   Pain is God’s megaphone.  I’ve been busy with my own life that I forgot about God.  I forgot to set aside daily bible reading.  I forgot about daily prayer.  I forgot about God’s commandments.

Very often I wanted to be selfish.  God then allows pain to happen so that I realize that I need to change for the better.

Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change.

Proverbs 20:30

Teach Me to Depend on God

I can’t do everything myself.  I do my best to take care of my family, doing good deeds, and be a lawful citizen.  But most of all, I need God to strengthen me.  I need God to give me grace when I just can’t do it anymore.  I need His mercy to allow me to move on after my mistakes.

Like King David correctly said:

The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles.

Psalm 119:71

Minister to Others

The principle is simple:

…when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us.

2 Corinthians 1:4

The pain I’ve experience does humble me.  It gives me a new perspective in life.  It makes me more sympathetic.  I must not waste my pain.  I must share how God and I dealt with it.  What I learned is valuable to others.  It’s wiser to learn from the experience of others.  There’s no need for others to experience the same pain as I do.

I don’t want to live with the pain that I’ve experienced in my life.  So why is it that I always dwell in them?  It’s in my mind.  It’s in my dreams.  It’s in my decisions for the future.  It’s not healthy.

I’ve had the pains for so long, I’m comfortable with them.  Bad relationships?  Been there.  Bad decisions about my career?  Done that.  Do I learn from them? Absolutely.  Do I remember them?  Sure.

The pain became my identity.  “I am what I am.”  What an excuse.  But it’s an easy excuse for any character defect that I have.  It’s an easy way out of doing something to correct it.  I want my identity to be good and constant.

My defect has a payoff.  If I get mad and starts yelling at my daughter, I will get her attention.  If I get angry and shunned my wife, she’ll (hopefully) try not to tick me off again.  I do the bad and awful things because it has short term benefits.  SHORT TERM. Instant benefit is temporary.  I want a lasting change.

Satan is sneaky – he wants me to stay in my pain and discourages me.  The scene is like a movie or comic books, when there’s a decision to be made, like returning a dropped wallet with money in it, both the demon and angel will speak to me on each shoulder.  Most likely I’ll listen to the demon because his suggestion will make me feel good – albeit temporary.  I will need to listen to the angel more.

I need to know God’s truths and abide by them.  Only then I’ll no longer prolong the pain.  God will set me free.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32

Being a parent is full of life’s trials.  I just don’t know what to expect from my child. As a toddler, she’s adventurous, curious, and brave.  She’ll try to explore everything and do anything, on her own!  When she discovered she could run, she ran – a lot!  As a 40-year old, it’s tough for me to keep up!  One thing I observed she likes to do is to let go of my hand when crossing the street, or walking on the parking lot.  Both my wife and I have this huge fear of her being struck by a car.  It was a common occurrence, we heard so many stories about accidents with children and cars.  I’m so worried, I’ll raise my voice, and sometimes spank my child, so that she’ll listen and hold on to my hand while crossing the street.

Then I realized, God is doing the same to me!  He would tell me with a “loud voice” and “spanking” to get my attention that danger is ahead.  He’ll tell me through grief and pain.  They’re the loudest signal God can ever send to me.  He wants to hold on to my hands while I cross that busy street, or unpredictable parking lot.  He knows what’s ahead because He’s bigger, and I’m not.

Once He gets a hold of me, I don’t have to worry any more!  I have to let God hold me.

He’s in control.  Always will be!

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Phillipians 1:4-6

I get a lot of grief and pain – all sorts of shapes and sizes.  My past relationships have given me grief, by thinking about what I coulda and shoulda done.  I get pain from dealing with my so-called friends and family, which I would harbor to distance myself from a lot of potentially good people in my life.

God works with grief and pain to send wake up calls to me.   I did and said a lot of stupid things.  The grief would surface to remind me that I didn’t have to think about the past.  I just need to learn from it, and not make the same mistake again.   God would let pain happen, but physically and emotionally, to help me understand consequences of my actions.

Inevitably, I’m not in control.  There were times when I took the wheel and be the driver of my life.  I crashed and burned!  Then I would blame God for letting it happen.  Then I realized, it was my fault in the first place.  I didn’t let God control me. Only bad things happen when it was just about me, myself, and I.

Only God has the power to help me change.

I must mourn for my loss of control.  I must mourn for my grief and pain – and let them go.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

Last night, I got to put to the test what I had learned for the past week on how to reconcile. Out of all the people, it had to be Yantie.  She didn’t like my tone when I talked to her, and we got into a major argument over a minor misunderstanding.  The words that she used were painful and hurtful. She did it because she felt the same way about me yelling at her.  I felt like Job being put through the test.  It felt like the end.  I didn’t have any other choice but to plead for God’s help in keeping our marriage together.  I had to offer peace offering and begged to reconcile our differences.   I had to absorb my pain, as she did, when she gave me another chance.  I didn’t want to waste our relationship and I agreed on being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.  I also vowed not to raise my voice to her again.

I must remember this day.  It’s the day that reconciliation is the key to any resolution in conflict.

I have to first let God help me. Then I have to understand and help others. Finally the last couple of things I need to do are the difficult one: be willing to absorb the pain. I must not let the cycle of hate, spite, and revenge to go on. It ends with me, even if it’s not my fault. Jesus is the best example of this:

Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful.

Romans 5:6

He sacrificed himself when I don’t deserve it. I make the mistakes and He takes the blame. So I must be more like Jesus and absorb the pain, for the sake of reconciliation. I must emphasize reconciliation more than anything else, even over resolution. I must re-establish the relationship with others – it is the utmost important. I must not be self-centered.

Oh let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace
And let us be a holy nation
Where pride and predjudice shall cease
Let us speak the truth in love
To the lost and least of these
And let serve the Lord in unity so others will believe L let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace

Oh let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace
And let us build on one foundation
Till He comes and the wars of men shall cease
Let us share the Love of Jesus without hypocrisy
Let mercy and forgiveness begin with you and me
Let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace

Have we not one Father?
Have we not one faith?
Have we not one calling to become one Holy race??
Let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace

And let us pray for restoration
And seek the Lord together on our knees
Let us keep our hearts from evil
And cling to that is good
Let us honor one another and love the brotherhood
Let us be a generation of reconciliation and peace

MORRIS CHAPMAN
RECONCILIATION SONG

How can I start treating other believers like members of my own family?

The Purpose Driven Life, p. 122

We have a couple of friends from a church in San Diego, let’s call them Chris and Robin (for anonymity). Back in early 2000, they were newlyweds, like us, so we got a long very well. We started going to their bible study and they would visit our church on sundays. There was a day when Chris and Robin got into a big fight and she decided to leave out of town without letting him know. He would call me, told us what happened. Yantie and I would drive to his apartment, and tried to help him out by talking to him, and going to the airport to see if she was still there. We stayed with him the rest of the day, prayed with him. We sought updates the weeks after, sharing the pain he was going through, as he felt really abandoned at this point. Eventually Robin would return and they sorted out their issues.

This is what God wanted us to be: a family. When a member of the body is in pain, the body feels it. We felt each other’s pain and we tried to help the healing process. We love Chris and Robin very much. We continue to pray for their well being and God’s grace in their lives. I am glad to be able to call them my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Jesus and the people he makes holy all belong to the same family. That is why he isn’t ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.

Hebrews 2:11 (CEV)