Love Greater than Pain

After I came home from hospital, it happened my morning readings were in the book of Job.  This was impeccable timing, because whenever I read Job his suffering dwarfs mine in a matter of sentences.  A sore, surgically-repaired knee is nothing compared to what Job faced!  When pain hits hard it prompts soul-searching and questions.  There was no rational reason for the theft of his herds, the consuming fire from heaven, nor the collapse of the home of his son and subsequent death of all his children in one day.  There was no human answer for why Job's health failed so suddenly and the severity of his suffering.  Job's brilliance was revealed in the midst of his suffering, not by the absence of it.

Job never allowed his pain to reflect poorly upon the character, purity, and righteousness of God.  What happened to Job was wrong, but Job refused to charge it to God's account.  He acknowledged he had freely received good from God and it would be hypocrisy to refuse evil.  Job's suffering was severe.  He was in so much pain he wished he had never lived at all!  He was willing to trade all the good times - the blessings, his family, experiences, riches, friends, everything - to have the privilege of never being born.  Most have never suffered to such a degree, that they would give up memory of all good things they love and enjoy to have never known anything.  Job loved and trusted God, yet his pain was such he would have been content in that moment to have never existed.

Pain leads to self-revelation, and it is also refining.  It has the potential to bury us in self-focus or spurn us to praise and glorify God who is always good, no matter the struggles or pains we face.  I believe Job had a proper view of God. a vision seldom experienced by people today.  We have a benefit Job did not have, in that we can observe how God restored him in the end.  We can allow the fact that Job was restored by God to help us through our difficult seasons, but that is not what brought Job through.  He had no such hope, no precedent.  Here is the point:  Restoration or future benefit should not be what inspires us, but only a vision of God Himself.  Job's pain led to a deeper revelation of God.  Should pain provide a window to a greater vision of God even without physical restoration, we have been graced with a gift beyond compare.  We ought to love the Giver more than the gift. Through Christ, our love can be greater than pain.