Why God Allows the Pain to Remain

Why is there pain?
More precisely, why does God allow pain to exist?
More specifically, why does God allow pain to afflict you?

There are several qualifiers regarding pain that are necessary in our effort to understand God, how He acts, and what He wills.

First, the pain is not going away—at least not on this side of the eschaton.

Certainly, it will ebb and flow.
But some type of pain will present itself—daily.
So, if you are attempting to live a pain-free life you are either going to drive yourself insane, or (and) deny yourself the very path to salvation and sanctification.

Second, pain, though perhaps born of sin in general, and perhaps your particular sin, is permitted by God for a particular purpose.

We want to believe that pain is accidental, or another’s fault per se.
Even if both of those factors are true and present in the pain that you are enduring, there is another fact that is always true: God permits that pain for a purpose.

Third, God only wills my good and your good.

He is not interested in opposing us.
He wills that we become like Him.
Consequently, it is imperative that we believe that pain can be good if we receive it as though the Good God permits it and wills it for our good.
If we fail to believe this truth we will not only believe pain to be a tremendous evil, but also the One who permits the pain to be evil.

I realize that this idea is difficult to accept when we consider things like sexual abuse, kidnappings, human trafficking and the like.
God obviously does not will these things per se.
They are evil.

So, what is the pain for?

God permits pain to serve as an alarm that awakens us to the fact that we are not self-sufficient, self-reliant, or bulletproof.

The pain, regardless as to how minimal or overwhelming it is, exists to help us confront and embrace our personal poverty.
Personal poverty is the realization that ultimately, I am helpless, pathetic, limited, weak and am unable to fix my life, let alone anyone else’s.

For example, your body cannot refrain from aging.
Unless you die prematurely, you will grow old.
Which raises another point—you will die, and you cannot stop this from occurring.

We may believe that we have some control over our lives—and we do.
But we are never to believe that the little control we have over little things indicates that we have ultimate control and power…we don’t.

God allows pain to awaken us to our personal poverty.

Why?

Because when you realize that you are limited, weak even pathetic, you also realize that you need Someone who is not those things—you realize you need God.

It is while we are (first) experiencing pain and (second) gradually embracing our personal poverty that God invites us to (third) be patient and (fourth) persevere.

Patience is humbling.
We wait on someone with whom has the power to help us to do what we cannot.
Additionally we realize that we cannot control or coerce that Someone to alleviate our miserable situation in the timely fashion that we would like.
Patience is demanded to reduce our pride in ourselves and increase our trust in God.

Perseverance is praying, sacrificing, pressing on in seeking God and doing His Holy will even when you feel that He is distant, or does not care, or your efforts appear to be making little to no difference at all.

Only by patience and perseverance can we become saints.
Only be being patient and persevering can we be purified and prepared for something greater.
Without these virtues, you either attempt to rely on yourself, or flee from the pain by sedating yourself on the promises and pleasures of the world.

In other words, you short-circuit the process of sanctification.
Why?
Because by either fleeing from or sedating the pain, you are doing it alone and without God.

It is while exercising both patience and perseverance that we are to also trust —with bold confidence—that God is doing something good in us and for us.

This is the secret to sanctity.
St. Therese knew this secret.

She held two polar opposite truths together, as if in a spiritual tension.
She believed herself to be little and helpless.
Yet, with unwavering patience and perseverance she would surrender that helplessness to God as a holocaust for the conversion of sinners.

She believed that her limitedness, her weakness, her littleness was the offering God desired from her.
She would often say, “I cannot do great things.”
She would offer to God her pathetic acts of love with what she described as “Audacious, bold confidence.”
She truly believed that God was making her and would make her a great saint.

The world laughs at such a proposal.
The world says you must do big, epic, great things.
No one needs or wants your little failures.
In fact, the world despises those failures.
The world commands us to boldly believe that we can be whatever we want.

What a load of rubbish.

The world scoffs at the little one.

How could Therese, or anyone for that matter believe that by admitting their weakness they could be great?
It is in the pain of our personal poverty, while patiently waiting on God and persevering with effort and excellence in doing God’s will that God is preparing and purifying us.

It is here, when we sense our helplessness, and feel that nothing will improve, that God imparts to us the Holy gift of purity.
This purity allows us the ability to see how pathetic we really are, under our own power and efforts, in order that when we see others failing, sinning or committing stupid and sinful acts, we can empathize with them.
We see them purely through the lens of our own brokenness. Rather than criticizing and condemning them, we have pity on them—because we realize that God loves us in our lowliness.

But more importantly, we accept and love the little, pathetic, very real “part of us.”
We love the little self.

When we love our “little self” we no longer play the world’s game of vying for human opinion.
We cease to try to be the “big self”, the “know-it-all.”
We refrain from “having the last word” or playing the “expert”, or feeling the need to win the argument at all costs, or to prove ourselves to our friends, co-workers or even ourselves.
We give up posting on social for the purpose to let everyone know how great we are.

We are pure because we love our true self as God loves our self, and because of this we become capable of loving our neighbor truly.

When we begin to have the worldview of purity, which is nothing less than true love of neighbor, God then imparts to us real peace that only He can give.
This peace affords the incredible power to manifest unshakably God’s goodness to a world starving for His love.

God is happy to grant you this power because he knows that after having endured this process of pain, personal poverty, patience, perseverance, purity and peace, you will not believe that the power that is coming from you is from you but from Him alone.

That is why He allows the pain to remain—so that you remain in Him and bear much fruit.