To the Pain

Remember that scene from The Princess Bride? At the end, when Wesley is laying paralyzed in bed, and the Prince comes in, ready to kill him, and Wesley dares him to a duel. "To the death!" says the Prince. "No, to the pain," says Wesley, and goes into this long description of how he will cut off the prince's hands, and his feet, and gouge out his eyes..."and my ears, fine, I get it," says the prince. But Wesley replies, "No; I will leave your ears, so that every scream of every child who sees your hideous form will ring in your head forever." And the prince gives up.

I'm teaching a class on Job, and this week we're taking on Job's first friend, Eliphaz. Whose first speech to Job basically involves the idea that Job is being tested, or disciplined, by God. Apparently, to the pain, since God has ruled out "to the death" in the prologue. ("Just don't kill him," God says to the Accuser.)

So I googled the phrase, "God never gives us more than we can handle," my nominee for "least helpful phrase ever uttered to a suffering person." And I found a few things. Oddly, I also found a link to something about Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. Not sure what the connection was there.

And I looked up "test" and "discipline" in my concordance. Most of what falls under "test" comes from a few things in the Old Testament about God testing Israel. There are some laments not to be tested in the Psalms. And there's a bunch of "don't put the Lord your God to the test" from the gospels.

"Discipline" pops up in Hebrews. Those verses, combined with some "testing" stuff from James, are what's really bothering me at the moment. Because I have a really hard time with this whole idea. It all comes off a lot like God saying, "this hurts me more than it hurts you." It feels highly oppressive; an idea easily abused to silence those who are suffering.

It sure bothers me in my own life. Is God sending us infertility to "test" us? To "discipline" us? (I wouldn't argue that I could use more discipline, but this doesn't seem particularly helpful as a teaching method.) Does God send cancer, or famine, or hurricanes, or political turmoil - you fill in the blank - to "test" us?

This is an area where I feel the need to remove my shoes. We are standing on holy ground, and I am full of the fear of the Lord - in its straightforward, terrified, sense. The only testing story which gives me any hope is of Jesus in the wilderness, turning down the temptations of Satan in favor of a modest, fully human life. That Jesus is the one with me in my suffering.

I am not sure, however, that I am ready to believe any of it is a test. I wonder what people will have to say on Sunday. Should be interesting.