When I Don’t Understand the Pain
by Joe Leavell
I remember the deep expression on my poor baby boy’s face like it was yesterday, despite it being many years ago now. He looked up at me with confusion, pain, and accusation. While he was too young to talk, he clearly seemed to say with his eyes, “How could you?! You’re my Daddy! How could you let this happen?! I don’t understand!! This hurts so bad and you let it happen!!”
Moments before, our infant son sat happy and content on his mommy’s lap as the pediatrician prepared the needle. His world was shattered just a few moments later as the doctor put the needle in his leg. The change on his face went from smiling and content to wailing in an instant. “WHY are you letting this happen to me??!!”
How do you explain to a months-old baby how the immune system works? How could I make his mind even remotely grasp that we had done our research and had determined that it was best to help his defense system stand up to terrible disease through inoculation? How would we explain that we actually chose to allow him the pain that he felt in his leg in order to build him and make him stronger in the long run?
The simple answer? We couldn’t. There was no world in which our son at that stage could even begin to comprehend in the slightest why we were subjecting him to these tears. Yet, my heart went out to him as he looked at me with those large tear-filled saucers that spoke of my betrayal of his trust and care.
As a dad, I would have thought that as a loving father, I would do anything I could to keep my child from pain. Yet there I was, willingly subjecting him to physical pain so that it would save him from something worse. I couldn’t explain to him why we made our choices, but the reality was that his parents had chosen this path for his good. So, we held our son, assured him of our love, and told him that we were there through the pain.
As my wife and I both tried to soothe our son, I realized that I was being given just a tiny taste into what God’s perspective must be like when he allows, and even chooses, for us to go through painful experiences. It was only a shadow of how He longs to take away our pain, but allows us to endure it for our own good, even when we cannot understand. As a father, I began to see His love for me, even when life did not make sense.
Examples from Scripture
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. - Psalm 119:71
There are countless examples in the Bible of God’s control over painful situations while the person going through them did not understand. From Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, Job’s experience of extreme loss, and David and other psalmists writing songs of lament borne out of confused trust. Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and other godly prophets asked God, “Why?! We don’t understand how you could do this!!” Sometimes they received answers, in part, and other times they did not.
Jesus’ own disciples often complained to Jesus when they did not understand. In one moment in Mark 4:37-40, a great windstorm came up while they were on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus was fast asleep on the stern of the boat. They woke him up as they said incredulously, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Their words had a sting of accusation to them. Of course, Jesus cared for them! Yet, all they could see was through their eyes of fear for the storm raging around them. They had no ability to reconcile how Jesus allowed them to go through the storm without seeming to have any concern. While Jesus did calm the storm, he pointed out to them that it was their faith in His character that was missing.
The most pointed example of not understanding is found in the unexpected death of a loved one. In John 11, long after the funeral of Jesus’s friend Lazarus, Jesus finally came. Both of his sisters approached Jesus and expressed the same words to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” These words speak of the deep pain and confusion of grieving sisters. They carry an accusatory question, “Where were you?! Why didn’t you stop this?! How could you let this happen?!”
Just like with my little buddy in the doctor’s office, there were no words that Jesus could share with them that would even begin to help them understand. How could He explain the Father’s plan for the world to those who had no frame for the wisdom needed to even begin to see? In each situation, while there are things that God does reveal, the ability to fully grasp the mind and wisdom of God is clearly beyond our comprehension.
Jesus did not explain the inner workings of God’s design for Lazarus. Jesus wept. His compassion and care demonstrated his faithful love for his friends, and he demonstrated his power over the entire situation by raising Lazarus from the dead!
The Importance of Faith in the God Who Cares
Sometimes, in our pain, we long desperately to understand what God is doing! Why would He allow us to suffer so much hurt and anguish? Yet in the doctor’s office, it wasn’t a PowerPoint presentation of how the vaccination would work that calmed my infant son’s tears. It was our presence and assurance of our love. As the pain subsided, he held on tight to his mommy and daddy and rested, not in his understanding, but in our loving care. It was our character that he trusted, not our explanation.
The same is true with our God. The question really is this: Do we just want an explanation or do we want His presence?
While we simply cannot fully understand why He allows some of the painful things to happen in our lives, He does assure us of his love and care. He is working to use all of it, even the pain, together for the good of those who love Him.
“How will He use this painful experience for my good?! That seems impossible!” you may say. The simple answer? I don’t fully know myself. There are many such pains in my own life that I also do not understand. The question in our lives then is not how He will use it for our good, but how do we know we can trust Him?
The answer is found at the cross.
As Jesus fully endured the extreme pain and heartache of our sin on His own shoulders, His cry out to The Father from the cross fully exemplifies what we feel in part. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” Our cry of confusion and despair expressed by our own Savior helps us see that, in the darkest moments, there truly is a compassionate God working out His will for our good.
It was through the most painful event that made the least amount of sense from a human perspective that God has brought about redemption. He chose Jesus’s painful sacrificial death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and set us free. He chose for His Son to die so that we might have life. The resurrection then assures us that He kept His Word to the Son, and that He will keep His word to us. While we do not yet understand, we can be assured that His skillful love and understanding dwarf our love and care for our even our own children.
So in your painful experiences, you are completely free to cry out to your God in your confusion. He sees, He knows, and He cares. Yet, we can do so in faith, knowing that while we do not always understand His ways, we know He is a good Father who truly loves us, and is inoculating us to this sin-cursed world in His own, perfect way. We can trust Him.
If you are working through a painful experience, just know that you are never meant to walk alone. We at Biblical Counseling of Arizona would be honored to help care for you as you grapple with understanding and heartache.
If this is you, register at biblicalcounselingaz.org and a biblical counselor will connect with you.
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