Life’s Hurts are not God’s Harms
In the first few years of having children, my wife and I had to take our kids to get their immunization shots. They got immunized for all kinds of things. When they were really young, they would scream and cry as soon as that needle punctured their skin. Who wouldn’t? Needles hurt. And to make it more confusing, there’s mom or dad holding their arm tight so that the nurse can inflict that painful prick! But what they didn’t understand in that moment was that the pain that they were experiencing was being allowed by us as parents in order to bring about a greater purpose. The hurt of that needle was to prevent them from getting diseases like polio, mumps, measles, chickenpox, and meningococcal disease. The hurt wasn’t to harm them.
And the same can be said of us. God will bring us through seasons which hurt. But, his intention isn’t to harm us. Hurt is different than harm. A needle may hurt. But if the needle contains a vaccine, then it is not going to harm us.
The Scriptures teach this concept. For example, the Psalmist admitted about God in Psalm 71:20 “Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.”
When a season of life is painful, though circumstances may seem random or out of our control, the Bible teaches that God is in complete control. The Psalmist said that his troubles were allowed and ordained by God. And they were “many and bitter.”
Then if you look at another Psalm you see the other side of the story.
Psalm 121:7–8 says, “The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; 8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
Though God won’t keep us from all hurts, God will keep us from all harm.
Life’s hurts are not God’s harms. There will be many hurts in life. Some of those hurts will be caused by others. Some of those hurts will be caused by our own foolishness and bad choices. Some of life’s hurts will seem to be completely random. And, yet, God has promised his children something: That he is watching over them, to keep them from all harm. Those hurts are under his loving control and his watching eye in order to accomplish something good, something altogether better. He is preparing you to be more fruitful and useful to him.
