Ouchie!

Where is God when it hurts? The question, 'why me?' would often if not always accompany the former. We tend to blame God if things go wrong or if a tragedy befalls the family or in any bad situation comes into our lives. We go down memory lane and think things that we did as to deserve this kind of punishment from God. 'Oh God, what did I do to deserve this?', 'I'll be good from now on', 'God doesn't love me, He's not kind after all' are some of the thoughts that will run through our minds when we are hurt or disappointed with God. Tough times just proves how faithful we are in the Lord. A test that a Christian faces in life inspite of being a loyal and faithful servant.

The book entitled 'Where is God When it Hurts?' (a pretty long title but appropriate nonetheless) explores the world of pain and suffering of mankind. It tries to explain pain skin-deep (literally and figuratively).

The first part of the book shows us how pain is useful to us. Think about it, pain is triggered as a warning of an impending injury. We know not to touch a hot pan because we can feel the heat. We know that we need to rest our feet after a whole day walking in high-heels because we can feel our feet hurting. We know that we need to brush off the ant on your leg because you can feel the pain of the ant bite. As I read the book, I felt lucky to feel pain because it tells us that there is problem area in our body. Just imagine the victims of leprosy who have lost sensation in their skin. Their toes are literally chewed off by rats in their sleep because they don't have any sensors to warn them of the danger. So let us be thankful that we are able to scare off rats that might want to chew our toes!

Maybe you're thinking, well, that's just physical pain but how about the emotional and spiritual pain that we experience? Well, like in physical pain, God is telling us something is wrong in our lives. It's a wake up call that let us know that we need to reflect on our life. Although even if we love God and are faithful, bad things may still happen. We need to turn to Job's story in the Bible. Remember Job? The guy who was a faithful servant even though he lost it all? He had everything, a house, a family, a livelihood and a healthy body but calamity befell him one by one. He lost his livelihood, his family (only his wife survived) and even got boils. God did not explain to Job why but in Job 38-41, God describes to Job His wonderful creation. In the book, it says (I love this part),

God wanted, simply, an admission of trust. The message looming behind the splendid poetry reduces down to this: Until you know a little more about running the pysical universe, Job, don't tell me how to run the moral universe.

This teaches us to depend on God and trust Him fully because He will never leave us nor forsake us. We only tend to trust Him with the good times but when the bad times roll in, we question God. But we should always remember that He should be the master of our lives. Christianity is not about having everything we want in life (usually material things) when we follow Him but we also need to know and obey the will of the Lord for us.

Matt. 6:³³ "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Passage lookup: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job%2038-41&version=NASB