The Problem of Pain

"For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but through our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." ~II Corinthians 4:15-18

How often do we feel pain? I would suggest that pain is felt every day in some form or another. We stub our toes, give ourselves paper-cuts, run into things; sometimes it is serious like a car accident in which we break some bones or perhaps we slip and fall off a ledge. We can get sick with the flu, a cold, pneumonia. And then there is the whole branch of pain caused by human relationships: my girlfriend dumped me or my best friend is upset at something I did, so and so does not like me for whatever reason. The list goes on and on.

So, it is obvious that we feel pain regularly. Now the greater question, how often do we curse God, whether out loud with some spoken profane word, or in our hearts by a thought of discontent for what God has done. This happens with even the slightest of things like the stubbing of the toe.  Immediately following the brief moment of pain comes the "Oh ____!!"

In contrast to this reaction we have C.S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain. In the chapter on human pain, Lewis explains that God sends us pain because we are "rebels who must lay down our arms." We hate God in our flesh, that is by our original nature, and so God sends us trials and afflictions to mortify that flesh. This is one of the ways in which we are sanctified. According to Lewis, God "shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Our flesh has a powerful influence on us yet, but in His love God sends us pain so that we turn to Him.

There will come a day when we no longer need the mortification of the flesh, because our flesh will be made new. By the grace of God in that day we will perfectly do what Lewis describes this way: "...wherever the will conferred by the Creator is thus perfectly offered back in delighted and delighting obedience by the creature, there, most undoubtedly, is Heaven, and there the Holy Ghost proceeds. When we feel the base urge to curse God when we experience pain, we have only to remember the words of the Apostle, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding weight of glory...."