The Problem of Pain

I have no doubt that the greatest roadblock to believing in the God affirmed by Christians: how a loving, all-present, and all-powerful Deity could tolerate pain and suffering. It’s an issue, if not the issue at the heart of this week’s focus on “A Maverick of a God.”

Reading Yancy’s Where is God When It Hurts? a few years ago had me finding a partial answer and resolution, at least for me. At one juncture, I found myself journaling:

“As deeply, now, as I ask ‘Where is God when it hurts?,’ I ask ‘Where is His Church – His People – when it hurts?’ We, you see, are the answers to both questions. God is not on trial in our sufferings as much as we, the Church, are. And, to the extent that we are THE CHURCH, the question of meaningless suffering is radically diminished.”