The Problem and Purpose of Pain: The Problem of Pain, Part 1

Well today we start with the problem of pain. I don't know for sure why you are here. Maybe you heard we were gonna have refreshments and you wanted some refreshments this morning. Maybe you wanted to be here with friends. Maybe you have an academic interest in this subject.

It's just been a curiosity for you. How can God exist and there be so much pain and difficulty in this world? But you may be here because you have been through or are going through a painful circumstance. Or maybe you are working with someone who is going through a painful circumstance. Pain is an equal opportunity experience.

There is no one who is immune. The righteous and the unrighteous suffer. Christian, non-Christian. Educated, uneducated. Rich, poor, every nationality, every race, we deal with this issue of pain in our lives.

And pain comes in so many different forms, doesn't it? Sometimes it's things that just seem so completely beyond our control. Natural disasters, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. Disease, death, disability, depression, economic collapse. Your 401k is now a 101k.

And you're worried. It's a painful circumstance. Job loss. Suicide. Or maybe your husband robbed a bank, as just happened here in Greenville, with Greenville's first robbery. A deacon in a church who robbed the bank and took hostages.

If you're not familiar with that, that happened just in the last couple of days. Sometimes the pain comes because of wrongful acts. Maybe something we did that was wrong that we shouldn't have done that causes pain to us or causes pain to others. Maybe you've experienced betrayal. Or maybe a child has done something that was just completely wrong-headed.

yet you reap the consequences of that. I mean there's so many ways that pain can come into our lives. The problem with a conference like this is I don't know where all of you are in all those scenarios. I don't know exactly what your pain has been. I don't know where you may be in relation to that. My experience is is that once when somebody is in the midst of pain, the immediate effects of pain, the best thing to do is give them a hug. So as we start, I give all of you a hug.

But I do think there is a time and a place to step back and to think about what's going on sort of from a theological and spiritual perspective when we talk about this issue of pain. Now we will not be able to tackle this subject in its entirety today. In fact, we will not cover things related to theodicy. A theodicy is an argument that seeks to demonstrate that God is good and just even though pain and evil exist in the world. And there are theologians and so forth who wrestle with this issue. Now we will touch this issue but we won't plumb its depths completely. We don't have time today. So we're going to tackle what is the problem of pain and try to understand that. Then we're of that pain and then we'll look at some practical tips for how to respond to it. Let's pray and then we shall dive in. Today Lord we come before you asking for your presence where there is pain present in this room where hearts are hurting where people are suffering. I just pray Lord that this time together will be a time that you will use for healing for helping I pray that we will know that you are with us I pray that we will be attentive to what we hear today and that Lord you will use this time for your glory and to change us in Christ's name we pray Amen. I'm particularly interested in this topic because of the loss of a son. It was June 13, 1982. Louise and I were in a small room just off of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina. The nurse had just handed me the body of my son, Joshua.

His face was fixed and still, that solemn look of death. The nasogastric tube was still protruding from his nose, and I wondered why the tube hadn't been removed before I was handed his body, but that thought quickly passed as I took his body. It was only the second time that I had been able to hold him since his birth. I got to hold him one time at Greenville General where he was born, all tubed up and wired up and so forth. the second time after his death. I kissed his forehead, then I handed his body to Louise, and the anger in me was rising. Joshua David Rogers, born May 27, 1982, died June 13, 1982, son of David and Louise Rogers. That's what the tombstone said, but so much unsaid.

Joshua had been born prematurely. Initially the doctors thought his symptoms and his problems were the result of his premature birth. But after about a week of his decline, no improvement, the doctors realized something more difficult was going on. He was medevaced to the best NICU in the state at that time, the Medical University of South Carolina, where the doctors quickly diagnosed his condition. He had a serious heart defect. The greater vessels He had a hole in the wall of his heart.

The blood flow would not work properly through his heart. We met with a pediatric surgeon in Charleston who told us that surgery would certainly kill Joshua at that stage. And he looked at Louise and me and he said, he's in God's hands now.

So we prayed and we cried. to save our son. It was agonizing being by the bassinet. You start to read those monitors, don't you, that they have connected to your child, respirations, blood pressure, urine output. I never knew how important urine output was, but as his urine output declined, it meant his kidneys were failing an ominous sign it was June 12th I knew the date I didn't know what day of the week it was I had lost track Louise and I were preparing to leave late that night to go catch a few hours of sleep when the doctor came to us and said I believe you should stay her meaning was clear. The nurses were no longer saying a word. The doctor no longer offering any words of hope.

So we sat there by his bassinet. I remember putting my face as close to his as I could get. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to know I was there. I wanted him to know that I loved him.

I thought I saw a glimmer in his eye. It was probably my imagination. But then Joshua slipped away into the darkness of death. There would be no birthday parties, no graduation days, no foot races where I let him win. No first words, no first steps.

And the anger in me was rising. It was the words of a well-intentioned pastor that really sparked my smoldering anger. Louise and I were quickly packing to try to get to Charleston when this pastor stopped by our house. And I went out to greet him. And just before he left, he said, you know, it may be a blessing if he dies.

I didn't say a word. I just turned and walked inside. After Joshua's death, we got notes from many people. I saved the notes. Let me read you just a few of the notes that we got.

One note read, in part, As you know, our God knows best.

Another note said, We grieve with you over the loss of your precious little one, but we all have to claim Romans 8.28. God makes no mistakes. Still another person's note, this was a pretty insightful note, said, this is probably the greatest test of faith you have ever had. They didn't know how true that was. But it was the bibs that made me deeply angry.

Again, a good friend. And before Joshua's death had mailed to us from out of town baby bibs. We'd gotten them two days after Joshua had died. And when I opened those baby bibs, it was almost more than I could handle.

You've got to remember, my mindset at that moment, at that time, was probably not what it should have been. But I hated God for what had happened. In my mind's eye, being an attorney, I would cross-examine God. I had this scene in my mind of God on the witness stand because he was the defendant and I was the prosecuting attorney. And here are kind of the kinds of questions I would want to ask of God.

Where were you, O great and good one, when my son's heart was malformed? Where were you, O great and good one, when Louise and I cried and prayed and begged you to help our little boy? Where were you, O great and good one, when my son, my firstborn, my Joshua, faded like a vapor into the blackness of death? Do you enjoy watching a little boy suffer? Or is a heart just too complicated for you?

In my mind's eye, without permission, I approach the defendant. Where were you, I demand? Why did you let him die? Is talk of your goodness and greatness just a farce? The rambling words of pre-enlightenment shepherds and nomadic prophets?

Are you paying the slightest bit of attention to what is going on here on earth? Isn't it true you just don't give a tinker's damn about my pain?

But every time I ask those questions, the defendant, God, sat there. Regal, composed, unbroken. but at that moment silent

so I said I'm going to get the answers and I began a long and it literally extended over about a five year period investigation of this whole issue of God and pain and really went back and explored everything I had been taught growing up about Christian faith about God was it true Was it real?

When the only pictures you have of your son are of him in a casket, it makes you want to ask some questions. And we did.