Why the Pain?

Ok, so I'm a strong Christian. I believe in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ more than anything in the whole world.

I tend to get a lot of questions about Christianity and all of the aspects about it. Which is fine with me. I love sharing God's love with everyone I meet.

I try to answer the questions as best I can. I don't know everything, so I don't have all of the answers. But there is one question that I get more than others. It comes in many forms and can be answered many ways. But it can be summed up in 3 words.

Why the pain?

Like I said, I don't have all the answers. I can only tell you what I know, what I've learned over the years and what I have figured out.

People think God allows pain because He doesn't care. But just because there's pain in the world doesn't mean God doesn't love us. It doesn't mean that at all. Because he really loves us. For forever and for eternity.

But I think there are a lot of things that cause pain. But there's one thing that causes everything bad in this world: sin.

Sin. It's an awful thing, really. But over all time, it's caused so many awful things. And you know what they say. One thing leads to another.

That's very true. Over time, one sin led to another. And it never turns out good.

Hurt and pain in our lives trace all the way back to the beginning with Adam and Eve. In the beginning, when God created everything, from the ants on the ground, to the leaves on the trees to Adam and Eve, he only gave them one command: DO NOT eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But they defied Him. They ate from the tree and fell into temptation. Thus, sin was born.

Have you ever noticed that when you or someone lies, a lot of times another lie is told to cover it up. See? It snowballs. One lie leads to another. And it eventually gets out of control. That's what happened with sin altogether.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it put imperfection into the world. They destroyed God's perfect world. We're all sinners.

This is where pain comes in. See, we all mess up. We all do things we wish we hadn't. We all have regrets. With knowing that, how much wrong we've done, it can make you feel pretty rotten.

Saying all of those "What if..."s is pretty painful. A lot of times, we feel sad or mad or just down. It's a painful experience. You can even get depressed.

But there's a way out of this pain. And it's through repentance. Sin causes that internal pain that makes you feel so sad that you want to scream. The way out is through Jesus.

Jesus died on the cross to save us. Through Him, our sins can be forgiven. You just need to ask Him to forgive you and you have to want to do better.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that all who believe in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

If you really mean what you're asking and really want to do better, God will forgive you. After all, He forgave Adam and Eve, and they did the only thing God told them not to do.

"The Lord God made Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them." Genesis 3:21

This doesn't exactly sound like a redemption verse, but when you think about it, it is.

Adam and Eve ate from a tree that caused them to know good and evil, so now they knew they weren't wearing clothes. But God gave them clothes. God could've left them there in their shame for sinning. But He didn't. He forgave them and gave them clothes. It's a wonderful thing, having such a merciful God.

So I believe that the internal pain a lot of people feel, the one that makes them feel rotten beyond rotten, is caused by sin.

I believe that the pain can be lifted through Jesus Christ. I believe this through my own personal testimony. I hope you can find the lifting of this pain the way I did.