Real life is painful. I saw it in the Philippines. A two-year-old boy toddled out to my vehicle beside a busy Manila road. His “house” was just three feet off the road — literally so close to the road that if he stepped outside carelessly, he could easily be run over by a passing car. This child had worms, impetigo, scabies and who knows what other illnesses. Maybe that is why his mother came to me at a church service and asked me to pray that God would grant her prosperity. Prosperity, in her mind, most likely meant clean running water, a change of clothes for her children and a dependable source of food. And all I had was the Gospel. How did that help? Real life is the family who welcomed me into their home in India. The house consisted of a dirt floor and corrugated aluminum sides that blew over several times a year during the rainy season. The clothes they wore the only ones that despite our wealth and were they owned. I know, affluence, we are just as hopeless because I watched as these people I’ve described . . . them go to the river, strip down, wash their we just have better anesthetics. clothes in the muddy river water, and put them on wet. Indian tradition required them to offer me something to eat as a visitor in their home. They plucked a banana from a tree just beyond their barren yard. I felt guilty eating it in front of them as I watched their children watch me. And again, all I brought for them was the Gospel. What good did that do them? It certainly didn’t make them less hungry. Every Friday afternoon for more than eight years, I spent several hours working with Atlanta homicide profiling violent crime. I’ve seen hundreds of dead bodies, and I’ve noticed that I don’t recognize landmarks in the city by buildings anymore. I recognize them by who was murdered where. These victims had families who grieved over them — their loved ones’ lives snatched from them without notice. Most of us can never even begin to understand this kind of pain. Yet in the context of the suffering I’ve described, most of our concerns about masks, COVID-19, vaccines and our current disruptions may look rather trite. It is easy for me to praise
I ’m beginning to realize
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God — even to believe in God. After all, He has given me a nice comfortable home, I’ve never truly been hungry a day in my life, and, even more important to me, my children have had every advantage. It is easy to praise Him when everything is going relatively well for us. But what do we bring to those who are suffering? Jesus himself seemed to be almost indifferent to suffering on occasion. Remember, in Matthew 26:11 he told us we would always have the poor with us. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and I know he was right so far. I walked through a train station in Agra, India, where lepers lined the station portico as far as you could see. This could be as close as it gets to how it was in Jesus’ day. This is real life like it was for Him, but Jesus only chose to heal a few. Why? I’ve painted a very dark picture, and the question remains, “How can we endure our pain?” The only solution is to recognize that our hope lies beyond this world. In Romans we read, “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:24-28) Permanent solutions to pain in this world are impossible. Power, position and money provide only temporary relief for an eternal problem. The gospel is the truth that provides eternal healing, hope and peace. I’m beginning to realize that despite our wealth and affluence, we are just as hopeless as these people I’ve described above. We just have better anesthetics. Come to think of it, maybe it is these destitute people who should pity me. Because of my life of relative luxury, I am less able to see where my hope really lies. It is ironic that the very thing that makes us stronger is the very thing we avoid. James (1:23) admonishes us to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
