I (pain), therefore I am.
These thoughts are most often brought on by conversations with dear friends; philosopher kings from the oh-so-familiar kingdoms of hard-knocks and misappropriated theology.
How often is the fear of rejection and failure shrouded in pious language like ‘wanting God’s will, and, doing the right thing.’ As if God’s will means one, and only one immutable path for all of life’s big decisions. To make a ‘wrong’ choice would mean an irreconcilable deviation and thwarting of God’s plans for a life.
Brought into the light, however, this constricting rationale is folly indeed. Yet how many times have we heard this kind of language expressed by believing and non-believing people alike. For in actuality, most are using the guise of righteousness to justify their own paralysis in decision-making. Not wanting to be seen by God or others as ‘doing the wrong thing.’
And to a degree, understandably so. We have parameters, guidance, and counsel in our lives for our betterment and protection. And certainly, wisdom is to be exercised in decision-making; stewardship and thoughtful consideration for self and others.
But shall we not cease in our unwitting embrace of pious justification as an outworking for inaction?
We so earnestly seek to make choices that either justify inaction, or cocoon us from the greatest possibility of pain and suffering. We seek a pain-free life. By most accounts, we grasp for control at every opportunity to shield our hearts from pain. But the most realistic, freeing truth is this: there isn’t one. There isn’t a pain-free life.
To live fully is to encounter pain. To love perfectly is to experience pain. No one in our world is immune to it.
This is neither cause for masochism or self-harm in any way, however. We should never enjoy pain. It is simply to come to terms with the reality of it. Evil exists in this world as long as people are free to elevate themselves to God with a superior sense of control.
And of course as feeling, living people, we know this to be true, yet perennial conversations arise over timeless issues of fear, control, and pain. But it’s guised in modern garb; modern language. So we often misinterpret our angst over a new job opportunity, a non-existent or faltering relationship, or financial strain as pain happening within a vacuum, and our minds frustratingly cry out, “why! Why me? Why now? Why this?!”
Why not, friend? Why think it so strange. It’s not an attack, nor is it punishment. Even if our actions lead us to do everything ‘right,’ that in no way assures us of a pain-free ‘next.’ We may take great care in devising ways to control our circumstances and compose pious excuses for ourselves, but pain will always show our true allegiance. The truest valuation of a heart.
I speak to myself in this. For much of my life I believed God owed me for how well I matched the Proverbs 31 woman. In truth, I didn’t see God as Holy, but as a goodness dispenser. I put in my quarter of right behavior, and He was to pop out a Jeremiah 29:11 promise for my next big decision. Pain was the biggest affront to my religious sensibilities. I clung to my interpretations of provision, prosperity, direction, and guidance, and minimized those of pain and suffering.
And then, more life started to happen. Realities set in. Crisis of faith emerged.
When my heart has ached with pain, riddled with questions and anger over the inconsistencies of what I knew to be true but couldn’t reconcile circumstantially, I grappled with the discrepancies. I didn’t simply white wash my frustrations in platitudes of ‘God is good.’
At first, I tried to, but the sentiments were indescribably hollow. I wrestled. I left all together. I spoke words of shocking hate and despair. I told God that He offended me. I was failing miserably at being that Proverbs 31 woman, and couldn’t justify the charade any longer. All of this needed to be real, or not at all. I was coming to terms with pain in the context of genuine faith as I never had before.
There is a very different outcome when you feel, rather than distract from your pain. You come to a decidedly different conclusion; one which has staying power of depth, not only width.
And it is from that place of knowing that I believe the paralysis in decision-making begins to dissipate. For having determined the goodness of God as an eternal yes, I'm beginning to learn how to live life more with open hands. Not fearful of pain or believing that God causes the pain, but with a knowing that a good God is a higher reality.
This is a truth I now affirm, but a truth which came at great pain and crisis of the heart and mind.
Fear, in every facet cripples the capacity to love. It cripples our ability to release our grip for control, and cripples our perspective to sit with pain. It is the root. Fear of God, fear of man, fear of the future. It’s humanity’s timeless struggle since the fall from the garden. We seek to judge God because of pain.
But if a heart is open, pain can throw a powerful learning curve. There is a gentleness to be experienced when we choose to embrace, rather than shield, divert and blame for the presence of pain and suffering.
For pain is evidence of a life lived. The good, the bad, and well, the pained. But pain that produces something.
What it produces, however, is largely up to the state of your heart.
