Explanations for PainSample

You are bad

When I was a kid, Saturday Night Live had a skit called “Deep Thoughts With Jack Handy.” In one episode, Jack Handy mused, “If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is, ‘God is crying.’ And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, ‘Probably because of something you did.’”

That’s darkly funny because many of us think that exact thing when we are suffering. Maybe breast cancer is God’s punishment for all those years of ignoring God and focusing on you. Maybe infertility is divine payback for your premarital sex or your affair. Maybe this difficult season is connected to some sin you committed sometime in the past.

The reason we often make the connection between sin and suffering is that sin and suffering are often connected. The book of Proverbs contains passages like this: “The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame” (3:35). Fools get shame. Alcoholics get failing livers. Gossips lose friends. The greedy die lonely. Sin often has a painful earthly consequence.

Often. But not always. Think of Job, the blameless man from the Bible who lost all ten of his children in a tragic accident. Or David, the man who bravely saved Israel from Goliath and got a murderously jealous king as a reward. Suffering isn’t always your fault.

If you want to know why you are in pain, think deeply, critically, and biblically. “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3,4).