In The Problem of Pain Lewis makes the case that pain is God's way of taking things from us that have been making us insufficiently satisfied. He imagines that God is preparing his faithful ones to be content only in him. He writes, Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interest but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of happiness? It is just here, where God's providence seems at first to be most cruel, that the Divine humility, the stooping down of the Highest, most deserves praise. This serves as one of the themes in The Great Divorce -- the only ones who will not enter heaven are those who refuse to because they are not willing to surrender everything.
This is a hard view of God. We don't like to attach pain to God. The truth is, I'm not sure I want to either. I'm afraid to consider God as the source of all things. But I'm not sure I want to think that he has lost control, or that he never had it. Rabbi Kushner in his When Bad Things Happen to Good People wants to let God off the hook and say that some of the really bad things God has no control over. They happen, and God's role is to be with us as we journey through the consequences.
But where does the change come in? Is God trying to change us in the events that take place? Even the pain? Is pain an answer to our prayers?
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Fanny Crosby wrote:
ReplyDelete"Draw me nearer, nearer,blessed Lord,
to the cross where thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to thy precious, bleeding side.
I don't feel that pain is an answer to our prayers. I believe that God is crying with us in our time of pain. It all stems back to the free will that we were given and the choices that we make. If we fall from Grace, we may experience pain so that we will hopefully be drawn near to God again. When cancer attacks our body or when a horrible accidental death occurs, God is right there with us suffering too.
ReplyDeleteDear Dr. McConnell,
ReplyDeleteThank Jesus Christ, Sovereign Lord and Savior, you, Dr. McConnell, Pastoral Shepherd and teacher of the Church of the Palms immortals and C. S. Lewis, author, theologian and friend to many for bringing God’s kind truth home to my heart again. “A ha“, I was blinded and now I see why there has been a division in my soul for a period of years.
God has healed me, to understand, we are immortal, now, not just when we take our last breath. What I have learned in the church and family as a child, has come back in grace to rest in love. There are no divisions now, where I have injured in word and deed, God forgives as I give up sins of resentment, anger, malice, unkind actions and words.
It is my prayer that we come together in love, resting in God’s heart, and serving always in building up, “rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep”.
May we awaken to the Holy Spirit’s way of kindness and joy of service throughout the whole wide world. Praise God the Glorious, Creator of life immortal!
Alleluia,
Barbara Boucher
8/09/2009
[Note: I am not a blogger. I have never before posted anything on a blog or any other form of social networking site.]