The older I get, the more I believe a few things to be extraordinarily true.

One of those things is that pain always has the potential to be productive, but we must choose it.

In the course of life I’ve come across so many people who believe that God cannot possibly exist or be a loving God because they, or someone they love, has experienced tremendous hurt. In reaction to this hurt, they have (understandably) pushed back against belief, rejected any form of loyalty or agreement with a God who has allowed such pain to come into their lives.

Put plainly, their argument is this: if God can do something to stop suffering and doesn’t, He’s not really all-loving. And if God wants to stop our suffering but can’t, He’s not really all-powerful*.

I have to say… I get it.

It feels incredibly human to resist a God who is called loving, but allows heartache, hurt, loss, and injustice in our lives.

But that position has in it a foundational flaw. Because if we choose to resist God altogether, we are still faced with the question, “Why does pain exist?”.

As the late Dr. Tim Keller states, if there is no God, there is only nature, and nature, in its very essence, is violence.

Examine the food chain and discover immediately the violence of nature. Observe a thunderstorm, a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, a flood. Nature is violence. Nature is pain. Nature is hurt. So if one cannot believe in God because there is pain, what is one left with when the result of life on this earth is still pain? How can anything meaningful result from suffering other than a strategy for survival?

If you know my story at all, you know it hasn’t been a bed of roses. There are many things for which I am incredibly grateful. There are also many things that have been incredibly difficult. I don’t share this to compare our pains or pit my experience against yours. I share it so you know I don’t write from atop a cotton-clouded daydream. I write from something more akin to a mountain climb with repeated volcanic activity that loves to slide me back down to the base of the mountain among its erupted gut of smoldering lava and ash.

That’s where I find myself today. Back at the bottom. Among the ashes.

As I watch people respond to hurt, there really seem to be two types of general reactions. One reaction is to push away, revolt, or reject God. Why would He do this to me? Or how could He let this happen? How could He possibly love me? This reaction usually leads to finding comfort in old behaviors. Behaviors that typically don’t serve health or longevity or purity or long-term happiness, but instead offer temporary comfort and relief from feelings that feel too hard to bear in their fullness. This reaction also tends to lead to a bitter, victim mindset that finds solace in the seductive whistle of self-pity.

I have to admit, it’s an alluring choice.

The other reaction is to lean into God. To search for Him. To seek Him for comfort and to bring every tear and question and doubt and fear to Him. This reaction usually leads, at first, to more pain and questioning and is difficult to bear in the rawness of the eruption. But this reaction also tends to lead to a sustainable peace. It seems to bring a deep stillness for the seeking souls who aren’t as shaken when the next eruption comes. There’s a knowingness that grows in these people. A calmness. A steady breath – like specially trained soldiers who can control their heartrates in the heat of a life-threatening mission.

The thing about sitting on the second choice, the choice to lean into God, is that it costs more upfront. One pays a higher price at the beginning of the hurt because it requires a soul to sit in the pain – to process it. To let it hurt. And then it requires action. It requires asking questions and digging in. It requires searching for answers. It requires excavating one’s own flaws and scars. Unearthing one’s doubts and turning on the light inside one’s own littered basement.

The second choice is harder. It’s harder to sit at the bottom of the mountain among the ashes and then stand back up and start climbing again. Knowing sweat and toil will come again. Knowing pain will come again. Knowing that the earth may shake again, and the lava may erupt again, and the mountain itself may give way and fall into the heart of the sea. It’s harder to not choose self-pity. It’s harder to deny the comfortable behaviors that can offer that sweet, temporary relief from feeling every painful breath.

Albert Tate says that the only thing God requires from us is ashes. That sometimes He has to burn our forest down in order to help us understand that the only thing He needs from us is our surrender – our tears at the foot of his cross.

God has, in His mercy, allowed me to win a few times in my life. But God, in His mercy, has also allowed me to lose many, many times. And through that, I’m learning a little bit more about what it means to lose well. Maybe understanding a little more what James means when he writes, “Consider it joy whenever you face trials of many kinds for you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance”.

And though I’m miles from really knowing what it means to lose well, I have, in this moment of ‘nothing but ashes’, the clarity to know that He is doing something. Working something, or someone, into exactly what He’s intended from the start.

I don’t know what your pain looks like. I don’t know how many times you’ve been knocked down the mountain or how weary you are of the climb. I don’t know how painted is your skin in the grey of your own ashes.

But one thing I know is true. Your pain will be productive if you choose it. He will use your suffering to make you better and in turn, make someone else better. He can change the world through your hurt. He can spark a movement through your story. He can redeem anything. Anyone. And He will, if only you let Him.

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*From the sermon titled “Why Does God Allow Suffering?” by Dr. Tim Keller