By Pastor Isaac Abiara

One of the most troubling aspects of the Christian life is to attempt to explain the reasons why we have problems. Many theologians have attempted to answer the question – Why do problems happen to Christians?

What is the purpose of pain and suffering?

When a lot of people have problems they think God is mad at them. They think “God’s angry, God’s mad, God’s getting even, and God is punishing me. Something must be wrong in my life. I must be out of God’s will because I’ve got all these problems.” The truth is “No, a lot of times problems are God’s will for your life.” He uses them for various reasons. In the book of Isaiah God says “My ways are not your way, and my thoughts are not your thought.”

Hard as it may sound, problems are often beneficial. Sometimes pain is a spiritual warning that removes us from our satisfaction and complacency in this earthy life. C.S. Lewis once wrote “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. This is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

God doesn’t cause our problems but He uses the problems of Christians for good. God doesn’t cause my problems. I cause most of my own problems and so do you. Also, other people cause problems, devil can cause problems, the world can cause problems and nature can cause problems. It really doesn’t matter why or who caused the problems in your life. Regardless of the source, God wants to use them for good in your life.
The bible says in Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good to them that loves God and are called according to His purpose. Anybody can bring good out of good but only God knows how to bring good out of bad.

1 Peter 4:1 says, “Friends, when life really gets difficult don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead be glad that you’re in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process [Circle “a spiritual refining process”] with glory just around the corner.” The Bible says that God has a long-term benefit planned for those who handle problems correctly. If you’re a believer and you’ve opened your life to God’s Son and you know that you’re going to heaven when you die the Bible says that rewards in heaven are going to be based one thing; on how you handle your problems. Did you learn to handle them correctly? Those rewards you’re going to get are going to go on and on and on forever and ever and ever in eternity. So it makes sense that we figure out what God is doing in our problems here on earth. He doesn’t cause them but He certainly uses them in our life.

God doesn’t enjoy problems in your life. He’s not a cosmic killjoy who sits up in heaven thinking, “I just love seeing people frustrated.” He’s not that way at all. The Bible says in Lamentations 3 “He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way.” God doesn’t get His joy out of giving you problems but He does have a purpose behind every problem. Those big problems, the moderately sized ones, and even the little ones, all have a purpose behind them in your life. What are those purposes? We’re going to look at them.

God uses problems to direct us.

The problems we are facing are being used by God to point us in a new direction, to give us different path. Sometimes you’re headed down one direction and God says, I don’t want you going that way so He puts a roadblock there. It forces you to go a different direction. You’re all very familiar with roadblocks of life. Proverbs 16:9 says “A person may plan his own journey but the Lord directs his steps.” Humans plan, God directs. How does that work?

You know what it means to plan. You can make all kinds of plans. You can set your goals, establish your objectives, lay out your priorities, clarify your values, and set some dreams. You can go do a life plan and figure out everything you want to do and accomplish in your lifetime. You set up all your plans.

But then it says, “but God directs.” How does God direct when you’re making your plans? One word: problems. Have you noticed that problems often change your plans? You make all these plans and then very few of them actually happen the way you plan them. Why? Problems come in the way, they change your plans. You can make your plans, because the Bible says you ought to plan, but God is going to direct your life and one of the ways He does it is He allows a little roadblock when He has a better idea for your life.

Proverbs 20 “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways.” We’ve all had this. It has been said many times, “We don’t change when we see the light; we change when we feel the heat.” As we know it, pain can be a very powerful motivator in our lives. It gets us going. It gets us moving. It gets us off of our “blessed assurance.”

Sometimes God wants us to get up off our comfort zone and get us moving so He lights a fire underneath us and He gets us going. Things become uneasy and uncomfortable and we are not so satisfied and settled. If everything was comfortable in your life you’d never change. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to get us to change our ways.

Aristotle once said, “We only learn through pain.” Some of the things you learned in life, you learned by being burned. That’s how you learn them. So God says, I’m going to use problems to direct you. Remember the famous story in the Bible of the prodigal son where the young boy comes to his dad one day and says, “Dad, I want you to give me my inheritance now.” So his father gives him his inheritance and he goes off and he totally blows it in Vegas (actually it was Jerusalem). He spends it primarily on women, on wine, and song. Eventually he runs out of all his money and he ends up living in a pig pen with pigs, which is not a good thing, especially if you’re Jewish, and he’s eating pig food and he’s down in the dumps. He has hit bottom. The Bible says “When he came to his senses [I guess so!] he said: ‘I’m going to get up and go back home to my father.’”

That’s so typical. We often never change until we hit bottom, until things get really bad. We rarely think about the tough questions of life; Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Where am I going to go when I die? What is the purpose of my life? You would never think about those things if your life was totally comfortable. It’s in the tough times, when things aren’t going well that you go: “ What is this all about? What is life all about? Why am I here? What is my purpose? And Am I going to go to heaven when I die? We don’t think about our direction until we’re in a tough spot.”

This is what happened to David in the Bible. He went through a major crisis then he starts thinking the important things of life. David says “I have thought about my life and I have directed my feet back to Your written instructions.” There’s that word “directed.” He said, “I turned around and went back to where I knew I ought to be when I began to set down and think about what was going on in my life.”

One of the benefits of problems is they never leave you where they’ve found you. A problem picks you up at one place but when it finishes with you you’re in another place. You’re never the same after you go through a problem.

Remember the story of Jonah in the Bible? You might say he was swallowed up by a big problem. This problem just kind of overwhelmed him. He’s engrossed. He’s enveloped. He’s swallowed up by a big problem. But when that problem spits him out he’s not at all where he started. He’d been heading that way and God said, “No, I want you to go this way,” and between that way and this way there was a giant problem. It’s kind of a fishy story. And when he’s spit out he heads the right direction doing the right thing.

That’s a parable of life for us. That God will use problems in your life to say you’re headed the wrong direction, I want you to go “this” way. So I’m going to swallow you up and then I’m going to spit you out over here and you’ll be headed in the right direction.

We’d rarely change if we didn’t have any pain or problems in our lives. We’d postpone all the difficult decisions. We’d put off getting things right in our life, right with other people, all these things. We’d ignore illnesses if we didn’t hurt. Any time you have emotional pain in your life – depression, worry, stress, guilt, anger, loneliness, fear, resentment – any time you have any emotional pain in your life it is God saying to you, “Hello! I want to direct you in a new way.” It is a warning light saying you’re not doing it the way God wanted you to do it. So He allows these little warning lights of emotional pain in our life to say, “This is not right!”

We only change when our fear of change is exceeded by our pain. Isn’t that true? Since none of us really want to change. We’re afraid to change. Yet when the pain gets worse than the fear of change, all of a sudden we go: “I think I’ll change.” It motivates us. So God uses problems to direct us. That’s why Paul in the Bible was talking about a friend who had gone through major pain and he says this, “I’m glad not because it hurt you but because the pain turned you to God.” God uses problems to prod us and to push us and to prompt us to change.

One of my very favorite stories of the Bible is the story about a guy named Elijah. He was a prophet, a great man of God in the Old Testament. He had gone through some really tough times. He was kind of hurting. So God put him over by this little brook and said, “You take a little R&R, Elijah. Relax. Get rejuvenated. Refresh yourself.” There’s this beautiful bubbling brook with fresh spring water, which gave him all the water he needed. There were birds chirping, it was a beautiful scene, and God provided food for him supernaturally. So he had everything he needed. He’s just having a good time. It was like “Elijah’s Spa.” He was just relaxed here by Brook-Cherith Spa and he’s having a really good time.

But one day, we read in the Bible “ the brook dried up.” Have you ever had a brook dry up in your life? Something you were depending on and all of a sudden it wasn’t there any more. Like a job or a relationship or a friendship or something you were depending on for emotional strength or spiritual strength or physical support. Something you had counted on and all of a sudden it’s not there anymore and the brook dries up. That source of income isn’t there anymore. That source of support isn’t there any more. Many times in your life the brook will dry up. Count on it. It’s going to happen because things change.

So what did Elijah do? He did exactly what we do. He complained. “Hey God! What’s wrong? Don’t You love me anymore? Don’t You care about me? God, haven’t You promised to meet all my needs. I’m thirsty and there’s no water here any more. What’s up? Don’t You love me?” And God says back to Elijah, “Of course I love you. Of course I’m going to care for you. Of course I’m going to take care of your needs. I’ve promised to always provide for you. There’s just one little problem. I don’t want you at the brook any more! And the only way I can get you to move is dry it up.”

Sometimes God wants to put you in a different job. He wants to put you in a different relationship, a different situation, a different circumstance. As long as everything’s hunky-dory and comfortable you’re going to stay there. God says, “Elijah, I never intended you to live the rest of your life at this brook spa. I’ve got something else for you to do. So I had to dry it up.” Was God being mean? No. God was being loving, because God uses problems to direct us.

The bible says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

Your problems are not your problem, they are God’s. The most important thing is your attitude when you face those tribulations. How you see your problems will affect your outlook regarding it, hence determines how long you stay in the problem. You may be going through a trial of some sort right now, you may be at a point in which you are about to give up. You may be at the cross roads and are getting ready to give up on God. Don’t give up. The predicament cannot overcome you. God is using the problem to direct your step, to show you a new way, and to point you in the right direction.

Pastor Isaac is the Deputy Assembly Pastor at Christ Apostolic Church, Vineyard of Comfort in Lanham, Md.