Dealing With Pain

This is a good and helpful article by John Starke at the Gospel Coalition on "3 Ways to Think About God and Pain":

A pastor quickly learns that if he stays at a church for even a short while, he'll consistently walk with people through pain. Suffering is never far away from a pastor. Through trial and error, he learns (some of us slowly) what to say and what not say. There are no pat answers. Formulas generally work only on paper, not on people.I have learned that shepherding people through suffering and pain takes more love than pastoral expertise, and often love comes with time. Many times I've been ready with an answer for a question someone didn't have. That's not love. Without speaking for other pastor-flunkies, that impulse usually comes from wanting to be the Savior of the their pain, rather than the one who shares in their pain.

But often the tough questions finally do come. Usually it's not when they first approach me. It's typically after I've been slow to speak, and they can sense my heart is broken with them. From my experience, when people come to pastors concerning their suffering and pain, they're coming with questions. However, those usually come after folks know their pastor loves them; he's slow to speak and quick to mourn with the mourning.

When the questions come, it's clear that not everyone goes through pain the same way. There's not one good answer for questions about God and suffering. People are complex, and so are God's ways. Our answers should reflect that reality.

Nevertheless, I have found three categories of thinking about God and pain that have been helpful as I talk with different people in my church who have been fired from work, learned of their wife's affair, lost their spouse, or endured infertility. These three different ways help us wrap our minds around Romans 8, which teaches that somehow God works all things—whether pain or joy, sword or comfort—for our good.

I say "category" because, again, there are no easy answers to pain. Each instance of pain is different, and each person faces it differently. So use these categories flexibly and with as much love and tenderness as possible.

Seven Gifts From Francis Schaeffer

I still miss the late, great Dr. Francis Schaeffer! And I'm sure I always will.

Here's an interesting list of Seven Things That Francis Schaeffer Did for Evangelicalism (from J.I. Packer by way of Justin Taylor):

"First, with his flair for didactic communication he coined some new and pointed ways of expressing old thoughts (the “true truth” or revelation, the “mannishness” of human beings, the “upper story” and “lower story” of the divided Western mind, etc.).

Second, with his gift of empathy he listened to and dialogued with the modern secular world as it expressed itself in literature and art, which most evangelicals were too cocooned in their own subculture to do.

Third, he threw light on the things that today’s secularists take for granted by tracing them, however sketchily, to their source in the history of thought, a task for which few evangelicals outside the seminaries had the skill.

Fourth, he cherished a vivid sense of the ongoing historical process of which we are all part, and offered shrewd analysis of the Megatrends-Future Shock type concerning the likely effect of current Christian and secular developments.

Fifth, he felt, focused, and dwelt on the dignity and tragedy of sinful human beings rather than their grossness and nastiness.

Sixth, he linked the passion for orthodoxy with a life of love to others as the necessary expression of gospel truth, and censured the all-too-common unlovingness of front-line fighters for that truth, including the Presbyterian separatists with whom in the thirties he had thrown in his lot.

Seventh, he celebrated the wholeness of created reality under God, and stressed that the Christian life must be a corresponding whole—that is, a life in which truth, goodness, and beauty are valued together and sought with equal zeal. Having these emphases institutionally incarnated at L’Abri, his ministry understandably attracted attention. For it was intrinsically masterful, and it was also badly needed."

Amen, Dr. Packer, Amen!