It’s a good question. One that needs an answer. It’s a question that, left unanswered, can drive many people away from faith. It’s a question that people ask because there seems to be an intuitive sense inside of all of us that says, “If God is in control and He is good, He wouldn’t allow this to be happening.”
I believe there are many sufficient answers to this question, but in this post I will only offer one. Simply put, God uses pain to get our attention. In his powerful book, The Problem with Pain, C.S. Lewis explains,
Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
The reality is that when things are going well for us, we tend to forget about God. People are inclined to drift into a state of self-reliance and begin to live as if they do not need God. Through Moses, God warned his people about this tendency to forget about Him. Before they began to occupy the promised land God said,
“Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the LORD your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 8:11-14
When we have all that we need and are well-supplied, we tend to move away from God. So, in His sovereignty and love for us, He sometimes uses pain to bring us back. When pain strikes, we seem to look up.
Airman Louis Zamperini’s plane was shot down in the Pacific during World War II. Miraculously, he and a few other men survived. They floated for 47 days on the open, shark-infested waters. They were finally captured by the Japanese, and, whereupon, a 2-year journey began as POWs. After the war, Zamperini made this statement about the time on the raft:
When you reach the end of your rope, and you have nowhere else to turn, your atheism isn’t going to help you. You are going to look up. So, all we did on that raft was pray–morning, noon and night.”
In Psalm 119:71, the Psalmist wrote, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.” The hard truth is that God uses pain to refocus our lives on Him and His instructions. He will allow us to come to a point where we need Him, look to Him, and depend upon Him.
God’s design for our relationship with Him is one of dependence. As a branch of a tree is dependent on its connection to the trunk in order to produce leaves or fruit, we, too, must stay connected to Him in order to have strength for life. When we forget Him and choose to live self-sufficient lives, we fail to find the life for which we were created. In His love for us, He draws us back through pain.
Is God regaining your attention through this current crisis?
What could God do through you if he had your undivided attention?
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