MrCrowder.Com

Interpreters of Pain

Sometimes we want to play the victim and enroll God as a passive watcher if he doesn’t rescue us the way we want, when we want, and how we want.

But maybe He’s suffering as well.

Maybe avoiding pain isn’t the point, and we learn that from what God/Jesus endures on the cross.

What does it mean for the World—this global community experiencing injustice, suffering, brokenness, poverty, narcissism, and loneliness—that the Creator and sustainer of the Universe is in the midst of suffering, experiencing it himself, not to be found standing from afar only concerned to make observations, comments, and judgments?

Maybe suffering or not suffering isn’t the point.

If you want to ask, “Why do bad things happen to (good) people?” then maybe you have to ask “Why do bad things happen to God?”

I can’t recall ever hearing anyone empathize with God.

What if ‘making things right’ means that God can’t let the injustice, inhumanity, and sin continue because of how much it’s hurting HIm?

Sometimes when I read the Text it feels like God has a breaking point.

When there’s movement so far askew one direction that God can’t allow it.

The suffering must end.

And God acts mightily.

Or softly.

What if God has a breaking point not because he’s drawn some arbitrary line in the sand,

but because

it

weighs

so

heavy

on

His

Divine

Soul?

If God feels it, why do we feel like we need/deserve/get a free pass?

Why do we think we need to isolate ourselves from the pain?

Maybe God/Christ/The_Spirit suffers not so that we can miss out on the suffering but so that we understand it.

So that we get it.

So that when we see suffering and broken shalom and injustice, we know it’s a Divine, Cosmic, violent interaction between something that’s deeper than our shallow needs and wants.

It doesn’t mean the pain will ever go down smoother.

But reconciliation is the renewal of the painful breakdown. And as agents of reconciliation, we are called to step into the pain and help others until they understand it.

Understand it, and learn to live in light of it.

We may find that living Correctly in light of the pain is the point.

As followers of Jesus and agents of reconciliation, we may find that our Calling is to become Interpreters of pain.

Those who help others make sense of a broken reality.

And then lead them to experience functionality, contemntment, and even Joy in the pain.

Jesus turned death on its head, and in the process he gave us what we need to interpret pain, despair, grief, loneliness, and overwhelming defeat.

Go.

Go experience life/pain/joy and live in such a way that makes sense of a reality defined by God’s goodness & grace.

Live as an interpreter of Life.