“He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light” (Job 33:27,28).
TEXT — Job 33:22-28
Message
Christian writer and theologian, C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” God uses pain to the advantage of His children, sometimes to prevent them from sinning, or as punishment to pull them back from sin.
Job struggled with the problem of pain despite his devotion to God. To worsen his situation, his three close friends concluded, without evidence, that his suffering came as a result of some secret sins in his life. In today’s passage, a younger man named Elihu shows more empathy than Job’s friends as he addresses Job’s condition. Elihu’s explanation on the subject of pain took a pretty different approach. He used an audience-shaped method to press his message to Job. He suggested that when people suffer, God may be passing a message across, and unless one listens or gets an interpreter, he will miss the point. At other times, God uses pain to lead people to repentance so that He can forgive their sins. Either way, God does good even through pain.
We may not have all the answers to why good people suffer and bad people prosper. However, the Bible tells us that “all things work together for good to them that love God to them, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Considering why God allows suffering, Elihu mentioned two crucial principles, two sides of the same coin. He states the concept of redemption through a ransom (verses 23,24) and the principle of forgiveness through genuine repentance (verses 27,28). Because Jesus suffered for us, God can forgive us when we repent of our sins. This decision makes all the pains of the present time worthwhile in the long run.
Pain is not God’s ultimate will and plan for you. If for one reason or the other it has been allowed in your life, it must be for an important purpose. You must develop the right attitude towards pain then. Find out why it is there, learn whatever it is meant to teach you, and get out as quickly as you can from it. God’s plan is for you to be healthy and happy.
Thought for the day
If God allows pain, ultimately, it will turn out for our good.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
