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At this point in the course, we’re going to move from processing our own personal pain, to understanding from a broader perspective why pain exists. So we’ve inventoried our own pain, we’ve grieved and processed it. And now we’re looking at ourselves as a subset of humanity whose condition looks and feels like our own. People the world over are often in terrible pain.   If you talk to people about the reasons that they doubt there is a good God who cares for them, one of the first things you’re likely to hear is “Why would a good God allow so much pain?” And we can’t brush that off with a glib religious answer. We have all asked the question ourselves. To be human is to feel estranged from God at times and to doubt his goodness. Seth posted a blog about a leper in In…

Spend some time reflecting back over these past several weeks.  Spend time in prayer and listening to what God is saying. You comments today should be what you have learned over this course.   What have you learned about pain? What have you learned about yourself? What have you learned about where God is in our pain?    

As we talk about brokenness and getting through it, I remember back to just about a year and a half ago, when my daughter launched for her World Race. Everyone was talking about brokenness, and how necessary it was.  How it was “part of the process”.  I remember sitting in session after session of the parent launch, hearing about all this brokenness and wondering to myself….what are they talking about?   How can brokenness be a good and necessary thing?  In my mind, I always thought brokenness was a bad thing…we must be strong and never broken, that was for weak people.  Its for people in dark places. Its certainly not for me.   As the saying goes, “that was then, this is now”.  Boy was I wrong about this whole brokenness idea.  I…

During the last nine weeks of this course, we’ve visited seasons of soul-crushing pain. We’ve asked God to help us learn from that pain. And we’ve walked out of those seasons stronger for it. We’ve considered how God may have equipped us to transform that pain and to use it for ministry. The challenge before us now is to live in freedom. How do we know if we are really free? And how should we think about pain going forward? Paul fought to help the brothers who lived in Galatia to stay free after others sought to pull them back into the bondage of religious, rule-focused life. He told them, “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.” (Gal 5:1) As a father, I delight to see my children make their own dec…

In life, we walk on this tightrope between overwhelming pain on the one hand and too much comfort on the other. During the last five weeks of this course, we’ve all shared times where the pain in our lives was so extreme, we felt like God had forgotten us.   To read some of your blog posts has been harrowing. As I read some of them, I couldn’t help saying, “How on earth did this person survive?” It was just too much.   Most of us can’t live in places of throbbing pain like that. We need some level of comfort. We need someone hugging us and giving us a measure of hope along the way if we are to survive intact.   It’s important to know that high levels of pain need high levels of comfort to restore balance. Maybe you’ve run across cases where people experienced such t…

  In our last session, we wrestled with the question of “Why pain?” Why do the people I love struggle so? Where is God in the midst of the pain?   Today let’s look at some of the answers that the Bible and Christian thinkers give in answer to that question.   As I’ve shared with you guys, at times in my life, I’ve been in such pain it felt overwhelming. There were just no answers. Each new day felt as miserable as the one before it. And you have each shared that you have felt the same way. We are not unique – if we’ve felt isolated by our pain, the irony is that everybody goes through that kind of intense experience at some point.   It’s normal in times like these for people get mad at God and reject him. They give up. How can God both be good and so seeming…

This week we turn the page from a focus on our own personal pain to how God wants to use it redemptively to build his Kingdom. As he was beginning his ministry (Luke 4:18-19), Jesus defined what his ministry (and, as his disciples, ours too) would look like citing Isaiah 61:1-3. Here is what it says and my interpretation of what he means in saying these words. Today, we focus on the ministry of comfort. The Spirit of God is on me because the Lord has anointed me… The Holy Spirit has come in power. I am equipped for specific ministry. …To bind up the brokenhearted, A group of people is targeted. I am to bring hope to those who have lost theirs. I am to encourage the disappointed, to bring emotional healing where pain throbs. …To comfort all who mourn. To bring the …

This blog post is from Seth’s during my course.  He has some great wisdom that I feel is way more insightful than any thing I could bring you.  So here is today’s post:   God heals our pain and then expects us to use it to heal others. In the last post, we looked at one way this works – when we are able to mourn with those who mourn. Today we look at the rest of what Jesus says he (and by implication his followers) are called to. Here are other ministries Jesus was given and we’re given as well from Luke 4:18-19: The Lord has anointed me… The Holy Spirit has given me the power I need to do specific ministry. …To preach good news to the poor. Here is the key target of my ministry – the poor. They are targeted for preferential treatment, because their pain is …

Our journey in this course has not been easy to this point. But some of you are starting to sense hope. Maybe you’ve felt a measure of the comfort you’ve been looking for. I’ve watched all of you pressing into your pain, even though you may have wondered “is this going to be worth it?” You’ve chosen to take a clear-eyed look at times of intense pain in your life. Some of you had to numb it or even wall yourself off from it just to cope. But then, leaving it buried and festering can be like when the doctor discovers an infection in the body – he has to clean it out if healing is to occur. Everyone’s pain is intensely personal. And most of us have been through seasons where our response to those on the outside trying to comfort us was, “Thank you, but you can’t possibly understand my p…

We are finishing a season of winter. Outside, everything outside turned dull and brown. The wind is whipping and there has been  frost on the windows. Coats and sweaters have been the wardrobe.   Winter is a time when all the evidence points towards death. In winter, the parts of life that were beautiful and growing fell to the ground. Cold air blows away everything green and vibrant. And sometimes our inner emotional life can mirror the weather. It can be a season where pain is our constant companion. We come to expect it. During winter, you can feel like the sun will never warm the earth again. You lose hope. You reconcile yourself to survival living.  In our seasons of winter, relationships and dreams that shimmered with life appear to be dying.  Maybe you had a run of bad luck or…