Hurt With Purpose

“In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked Him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but He can’t save Himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue Him now if He wants Him, for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

-Matthew 27:41-43

I was in line getting my dinner for the day when she blasted me with the question. As her lips made the indication of words about to spill out, I could already tell where this conversation was headed. She mentioned how horrible the Colorado shootings were. In my head, I thought, “I don’t want to demean the tragedy of what happened to small talk.”

The striking thing about this that was brought to my mind was how people deal with pain. Some people are numb to it in such a capacity that it only becomes small talk for them. Some people, when they hear of stuff like this happen in our country, force down the reticent cries of humanity, and let surface this seemingly apathetic manner towards the tragedy. What I have seen is that most people question. I have seen people flood Twitter and Facebook with questions of why God would do this, a question their aching soul has longed for a solution to.

The main question thrown around is this: “If God is so loving, why would He do this?”

My goal with this post is not to answer this question, but to provide reason to suggest that this question is not the question to be asking in order to deal with pain.

People place a condition upon God saying, “If God is so loving, why would He do this?” My question with this is why don’t the same people who ask that question place that condition upon man? Saying, “If man is so good or better off without God, why do they do this?” Because deep down, lodged in the deepest depth of our being, is the universal belief that we are not perfect, that we are not fine without God, that there is Something bigger than us.

By placing a condition upon God, we find our self falling victim to the same thing the chief priests did to Jesus in the verses above. They acted as if they knew God, but little did they know, God had a plan that would only be fulfilled through the pain and suffering of His Son.

I’m not pretending like I know what God had in mind with this shooting. But I know what to do in response. Instead of questioning, I pray that life can emerge out of this death, just like it did for Jesus Christ. Instead of questioning, I have the hope to move forward, knowing that someday, all the evil of the world will be forever redeemed.

You see, I only see the dealing of this pain going two ways: run from it and leave it to be forever questioned in our being, or face it with the reality that God is an all powerful God who has a purpose through pain. When pain tears away at the spirit of man, it either leaves the foundation of a thriving hope or nothing at all.

That is why I propose that we should not be a people who run from the question of pain of suffering, but instead hurt with purpose. The purpose that pain only makes us stronger by revealing our living hope in an Almighty God. In a workout, every muscles of your body only gains definition when you struggle through the pain. But there is no way to move forward through the pain without hope propelling you. The crux of my character, what I stand for, is only defined through pain because it is through pain my hope is most revealed.

For the unbeliever reading this, I pray that you can find the hope needed to answer the question of pain. And for the believer, I pray that events such as these may not cause you to stumble in your faith, but rather cause you to be modeled more like Christ. Because Christ had hope in His suffering on the cross, and that is what caused Him to endure it and move forward in order to bring us life.

Don’t run from pain. Be modeled by it.

Hurt with a purpose.