We took an Uber from our hotel in Virginia Beach to the airport and I entered into am interesting conversation with the driver. She was telling us about how when she was a teenager, her mother brought her to Jerusalem. Very easily from there, we got into a discussion regarding spiritual things. Though I have stated before and I still hold to, I dont make it a point to tell others what is right for them when it comes to spiritual things.

However, I could hear the desperation in her voice when she started talking about the age-old question of pain. The question of pain always contains the following: why does the way of the wicked and unrepentant and those who do not care about God seem to prosper while people of faith have to wait and suffer? Her question regarding pain contained this, just dressed up in her specific circumstances.

Frankly, I ask myself this question every other day. I have a lot of experience wrestling with it. Often, it has pinned me to the ground. I have had to find some answers that I could find even somewhat intellectually and spiritually “satisfying”. I have needed to find answers /mantras /assurances that I could find “satisfying” enough to last me until I get to ask the Lord face-to-face.

These answers are what came out automatically, like a reflex:

1, I do not have the answers for her and her own situation. All I have is what has worked for me. I do not have the answers for her, the Lord does. He has the answers for your specific situation, not me.

Psalm 139 13=16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of the

2. Life is not fair. Life is suffering interrupted by brief moments of happiness. God will pay you back.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 Again, I observed this on the earth: the race is not always won by the swiftest, the battle is not always won by the strongest; prosperity does not always belong to those who are the wisest, wealth does not always belong to those who are the most discerning, nor does success always come to those with the most knowledge–for time and chance may overcome them all.

3. When Jeremiah or Martin Luther King or Paul or Jesus did what the Lord wanted them to do, they suffered. Doing the Lord’s work does not always lead to sunshine and rainbows.

2 Timothy 3:12  In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

4. Happiness and riches are not guaranteed by following the Lord, He and His presence and power IS! He does promise to meet our needs.

Philipians 4:19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

5. The closer you get to the Lord, the stronger the devil will fight you.

John 10:10 – The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

These “answers” are ideas which I tell myself regularly. I do not know if they helped her. However, I encourage you to memorize scripture too so that if will be reflexive when faced with the big questions of life

———————————————————————————W.