The Pain of Life

In November of 2006, the Father said to me, "I am going to completely re-frame your relationship with Me...the way you see your life." In the few weeks following that announcement, He called me away from every ministry activity I was involved in to join Him in a wilderness experience for a season. It was to be just Him and me.

Soon after that I wrote this in my journal: "Out here in the desert it's hot, dry, no water, not much plant life, scorpions and rattlesnakes. No place to hide...I'm fully exposed. I don't like it here. There is nothing to hide behind or depend on. Only God..."

But then He began to reveal more of Himself to me. I imagined a picture of Jesus (from John 1:18) sitting in his daddy's lap prior to coming to earth. It was this kind of fellowship He was inviting us into...to sit in the lap of the Father, resting your head on His breast, feeling His heartbeat and the warmth of His breath coming down on you. Yes! I want that!

But just a few weeks later, I experienced something that was devastating to my heart. It wrecked me in the deepest of ways. As I took this to the Father, He began to hint that this was fitting very nicely into His plan to re-frame life for me. I then noticed several things in scripture that surprised me. In wondering what the heartbeat of God felt like, I began to realize a big part of His heartbeat is experienced through pain and grief. For example, the very first reference to the Father's heart in all of scripture is Genesis 6. When God saw wickedness running rampant throughout the earth, He was grieved in His heart. Then I noticed that Jesus used the word Abba ( the most tender expression that can be used for a father) only once. It was in the garden of Gethsemane just after it says he was grieved in His soul to the point of death.

Now I know this is starting to sound morbid, but hang with me just a little longer. I was beginning to see that I had entered into the room of abandonment, where in order to enter you must abandon all that is dear and precious to you. It is the room where you go to search for God...the room where you go to find God. He is in there...all alone. And to find Him, you must go in...all alone.

Some have referred to this as the dark night of the soul...a time or experience of much pain and agony, of feeling spiritually dry and abandoned by God. However, that really isn't the case. That phrase comes from a poem written in the 16th century by St John of the Cross. Here it is for you to read for yourself:

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Copyright 1991 ICS Publications. Permission is hereby granted for any non-commercial use, if this copyright notice is included.

Wow! This guy was not captured by life's negative circumstance. He was engrossed in being loved. But to get there he had to enter the room of abandonment. Maybe that's why Jesus said those who are spiritually destitute, who mourn, and who hunger are the ones who are blessed. Maybe that's why He dwells with the broken and contrite.

When we spend our time trying to manage our lives, making this life work for us, always seeking escape from pain or trouble, we are in reality running from a prime opportunity for the greatest gift...intimacy with Father. Maybe we should learn to embrace the pain that comes our way. Let it have its perfect work and result in our lives. James says to endure trials, as opposed to escaping them. And to let that endurance of trials have its perfect result, that we would be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. What can complete us any more than intimacy with our Father, enjoying His love for us and learning to live in that love?

The Father's love for the Son

Any discussion of the Father's love for us would have to include reference to when Jesus was baptized and the Father spoke, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." This public affirmation came at a crucial time for Jesus, for he was about to go into the wilderness for 40 days and would be subject to intense attack from Satan. Knowing his identity, and knowing the Father's love for him was absolutely necessary. There is a picture here of what it means to live loved.

When tempted with food, and asked to prove himself as the Son of God, Jesus simply dismissed Satan's suggestion, knowing his Father would provide for him out of the treasure of His love. He could choose obedience to "Man shall not live by bread alone" because he lived in the confidence that his Father's love for him alone was promise enough that his needs would always be provided.

When promised the kingdoms of the world, he could reply, "You shall serve the Lord only", not just because it was a command to be obeyed, but also because he knew the goodness and worth of the One we are commanded to worship. Why settle for anything less?

Finally, when Satan quotes scripture Jesus responds, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test". I'm sure he was thinking, "What a stupid suggestion! Why would I want to put Him to the test anyway? For all eternity past He has loved me fully and perfectly, and I love him. Love doesn't require proof."

So, applying this to our lives, you can see the confidence and security that come from knowing the Father's love as a core conviction of our heart, and then living out that conviction moment by moment. Or said another way, abiding in Him with His love abiding in me. If I am truly living loved like this, why would I choose to sin, or why would I choose anything that is not of faith. I would know I can trust Him and therefore I would live in His confidence and security.

Too often we look at things like the example of Jesus in the wilderness and conclude this is what it looks like to be like Jesus, and so we attempt to live out that way. Sort of like looking at the fruit of the Spirit and determining to be more loving, more joyful and more peaceful, failing to realize these things are the outward fruit of something deep within. The characteristics of someone learning to live loved come as the result of holding a deep conviction that you are loved, to which you respond in love resulting in obedience. To turn it around and do the obedience part first in order to experience His love is to miss the whole point. The true pattern is something like this:

God initiates His love for us.

We respond to His love with love.

Out of our love for Him, we are obedient.

In our obedience we are abiding in and continue to experience His love.

As we experience His love we respond with love...

You get the picture.

Here we go!!!

For the last 3 or 4 years, God has been revealing to me just how little I know about His unfathomable love for me. I have lived a performance based Christianity for so long that it is difficult for me to grasp how deep His love for me really runs.

This summer I was reading the book of Job, I began to see Job from a different perspective. I had heard John Eldredge quoted as saying the book of Job is a picture of the incredible battle raging over our core beliefs and God's fierce determination to expose those beliefs in order to heal them. This made sense to me since I have experienced some of the deepest pain of my life over the past two years, a type of Job experience. In the midst of it all, He kept asking me, "What is this pain revealing to you?" For the longest time I didn't know how to answer that question. Now I'm beginning to see what He's getting at.

At the deepest levels of my heart, I have not had as a core conviction the fact that He loves me. And so when things in my life go sour, I tend to blame Him, or question His goodness, or respond in any number of other erroneous ways.

And so He has initiated a new part of my journey that I call, "Learning to live loved". What would my life look like if I lived it from the foundation of our Father's love being lavished upon me? How would I interpret my circumstances (good or bad) in light of His love for me and what difference would it make? How would I treat others differently if I really believed at my core that He loves me? What would happen to my motives for all that I do?