Day 30: Tell Him Where It Hurts

Then Job replied to the Lord: I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this who conceals my counsel with ignorance? ”Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wondrous for me to know. You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform me.”I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you. Job 42:1–5

Sir C. S. Lewis (who I can’t wait to meet in Glory since I’ve read every book he wrote at least twice and have nursed a platonic crush on him for decades) wrote: “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”7 Which at first read might sound sober—if not depressing. However, over the past few years I’ve been surprised to discover that the deeper I’m willing to explore my own pain, the more joy I’ve been able to excavate.

We live in a world that is reeling in pain but doesn’t know how to navigate it, so mankind goes to great lengths to numb it, to medicate their misery. Pharmacists are filling more anti-depression prescriptions than ever before in modern medical history, Internet porn sales are conservatively estimated to be at least 15 billion per year (yes, that’s “b” for billion, putting it well ahead of Netflix in terms of profitability), and suicide in the United States increased by an alarming 30 percent from 2000–2016—50 percent among girls and women. To say the human race is not handling our pain well is a huge understatement.

And all too often contemporary culture flings blame in the wrong direction, much like a child snapping disrespectfully at a parent after school when what they’re really upset about is the bully who knocked their plate over in the cafeteria at lunchtime. They’re quick to ask angrily how a good God could allow horrific things like human trafficking and genocide and cancer to happen but very slow to acknowledge that He is actually God, whose ways are both superior to mankind’s and above our comprehension and whose absolute sovereignty includes the ability to transform what is evil and tragic into something truly good.

Thankfully, as Christ-followers we have the antidote for global grief because like Job, we know there is a living, accessible, compassionate Redeemer who chooses to be close to the broken-hearted. When the world watches us express genuine peace and hope in the midst of suffering, the unlikeliness of our response captures their attention. As author Barbara Johnson used to say, “We are Easter People living in a Good Friday world!” In other words, how well we deal with heartbreak says everything about the One we’ve entrusted our hearts to. We’re called to not simply be consumers of unlikely joy, but conduits to the world around us.

• Who in your life exemplifies Barbara Johnson’s description: “an Easter person living in a Good Friday world”?
• Do you think your close friends and family would describe you the same way?
• What might need to shift in your life in order to develop this sort of unlikely perspective in the midst of pain?