The Pain of God: Part 3

The farm we live on in Nicaragua resides in the shadow of a volcano. I was honestly expecting something a bit more impressive than a craggy mound covered in indigo-shaded trees. I was expecting a massive black and red mountain of doom threatening death at any moment. But the volcano is peaceful, life-sustaining, and beautifully constructed, even though burning sulfur and lava reside miles beneath what we can see. My God made that. 

Thousands of years ago, my God spoke the earth into existence. He molded the surface like clay, poured water into the oceans, placed each star exactly where He intended,  and imprinted each creature with His signature. His signature cannot be forged, because His signature is life itself. And the world lived, for even inanimate objects like the rocks and waters participate in this great dance of worship. And then God made man, the climax of His creation. We were claimed with the fingerprints of God, made in His own likeness, and completely provided for. There was a garden for man to live and work, a garden where man and God could walk side by side in perfect community. God loved this creature because he was made in His image. He gave them freedom. Freedom is a dangerous thing for the one that allows it, because it opens the opportunity for disobedience. And it was even more dangerous for God, because He is not just a King deciding His plan for His subjects, He is a Father desiring the best for His children. Freedom in the parental sense is treacherous because the best is a relationship with the Father, but that best is often exchanged for idolatry and abomination. God knew that His children would take the opportunity for disobedience and break His heart. But He allowed His heart to be broken anyway. 

What do you do when someone breaks your trust? Most people build up emotional boundaries so that their future isn’t compromised. This is natural. This is human. Grace is free because it depends on the generosity of the giver, but trust is earned because it depends on the character of the person who you are trusting. I think people get ‘trust’ confused with opening up the gates of the emotional walls that you constructed around your heart. God never trusted us around temptations to sin, but He also never shut us off. He allowed us into His garden, into His presence, though He knew it was a matter of time before we would accept the fruit of separation. I encourage you to read Genesis 3 at this point so that you will have context for the rest of the blog. 

In this story, the pain of God is threefold: 

1. Adam and Eve, who He loved, believed the lies of the Devil instead of His Word. His children trusted the enemy rather than their own Father. (Genesis 3:4) The Father never lies, but He was made out to be a liar, and that caused Him pain. God does not need us to defend His truth, and He is not defined by whether or not we make Him out to be a liar. What caused Him pain was the fact that He was not trusted by creatures to whom He had only treated with love and kindness. 

2. His children hid from Him. (Genesis 3:8) Although God knew all along where they were, He went through the process of searching for them in the garden because that’s what fathers do. When a child is lost, fathers search. And in that search, you hear His cry, “Where are you?”, begging His children to come out from their hiding place. Before sin, they had lived in full communion with Him, enjoying His presence, and now, they are crouched in the bushes ashamed of the bodies He had given them. God felt pain because His children did not want to be found by Him. They preferred separation because they were afraid of punishment. 

3. Now that humans are tainted by sin, they have to be evicted from the garden. (Genesis 3:23-24) His children can no longer dwell in His presence. God taking them out of the garden was a measure of safety for humanity because He knew that if we also took from the tree of life, we would be eternally enslaved to the sin that was brought by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, we were driven out by the great mercy of God, so that one day we might again return to His presence through His plan of redemption. Although God’s rescue plan was set in motion the minute separation was enforced, God’s heart was broken by having to drive out the people He loved. He had opened up the gates of His heart and allowed us into His garden even though He knew our nature to stray.  

The plan of redemption culminated in the person of Jesus Christ. Thousands of years after the fall, the Second Adam was stretched out on a tree, taking on Himself every sin, including the first sin of the garden, so that we might not be separated from our God anymore. He left the sin in the grave, and resurrected so that we might resurrect as well. We are now separate from our sin, it is no longer a part of us. Why would God do this? Why didn’t he kill His creatures the minute they disobeyed Him? Why would He even create us if we were destined to transgress? 

Because God is the Highest of all beings, it follows that His main priority is to glorify Himself, since there is no one better for Him to glorify. His purpose is not to avoid pain, but He experiences it to achieve His ends of self-glorification. So, if He is glorified by carrying out His Great Plan of Redemption, then the pain shouldn’t divert Him from His goal. Remember, God is not mastered by His pain like we are. God is glorified by turning our darkness into light. He is glorified by purifying the impure. He is glorified by rescuing creatures who don’t deserve it. 

As I sit here, my eyes travel to the volcano, the indigo outline against the dying orange sky. Yes, my God made that. He made that and everything else that it might glorify Him. And in the process of loving imperfect creatures, desiring their praise, He was rejected. He was hurt. But instead of avoiding the pain, instead of destroying us, He chose more pain, He chose to descend from His throne above to redeem us from our sins. Our God chose pain in order that we might spend eternity with Him once again, walking side by side in the garden.