The Pain and the Plan

1.3.2011

Genesis 6:6 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

Can you imagine – God’s heart was filled with pain!? I look back on all the years I’ve been reading the Bible and it amazes me how I so quickly overlook this: God suffered as a result of the choices of His creatures. Wow! That’s big!

But you know, somehow it endears my God to me all the more because I too suffer pain; and some of the same kind as He did when I see people I love who are making choices I know aren’t good for them. I think it’s a blessing that God limits our pain; I’m glad I only feel partial pain. Usually when I experience pain it’s a result of something external to my soul. God felt pain as a result of something internal to Him, for there can be nothing external to God that affects Him.

If God could be amazed, I think what He saw – as described in Genesis six – amazed Him. But then again, Jesus was amazed at the lack of men’s faith and was further amazed when faith showed up in people like Roman centurions and Syro-Pheonician women; and not His own people.

Again, today, I am somehow comforted that God isn’t immune to pain and heartache. I am somehow strengthened that He knows my every bungle and how I so adeptly fool myself into thinking the way I think, and doing the way I do. I am also comforted that He dealt with His pain the only way He could in His plan of reaching out to us in our own pain and sending His Son to redeem us from it.

My pain ought to create in me a plan to do something about it – like having those conversations with loved ones and reassuring them how much I love them and care about what they’re going through. My pain is a constant reminder of how much I need God and that He identifies with me by what He’s suffered. And my pain helps break the hard outer shell of apathy and cynicism which so wants to capture me in a care-less cocoon. Pain reminds us all that life is real but worth looking for the solutions; especially the ones God offers…

Father in Heaven,

God of Pain I worship You and am glad You understand completely. Help me this day I pray; thank You for Your plan – amen.