I did not know pain like that existed within the human experience. There's pain, and then there's kidney stone pain. The kind of pain where you-want-to-take-a-serrated-kitchen-knife-and-slice-your-own-guts-open-if-that's-what-it-takes-to-get-this-heinous-thing-out kind of pain. I have never plead for the mercy of God more than when I had a kidney stone. People who haven't had a kidney stone would say, "Ohhhh, I've heard those are worse than childbirth." And people who have had a kidney stone and given birth to a child would say, "Ohhhh, those are worse than childbirth."
I never really did find such comments comforting or helpful at any point during my nine-day bonding experience with my kidney stone. I seriously thought at one point - if there was a way to inflict kidney stones on terrorists, those surely would be a far superior method to waterboarding or some such torture method. If I were a spy captured by a foreign government and they somehow injected me with a kidney stone, I would divulge every state secret I ever knew in the blink of an eye, without question.
There were so many moments in the dark of night, when the pain would be the worst, and I would think, "God, why aren't you stopping this pain when I know you have the ability to do so? You're able but you're choosing not to. Why?" That is the very tension we feel around us all the time as human beings - why does a supposedly good God allow suffering when he is perfectly capable of stopping it? Or better yet, never allowing it to begin with?
So often as Christ-followers it seems as though we don't have permission to ask those kind of questions or raise those kind of doubts. It goes unspoken that our declarations of faith should begin and end with "[God's] will be done," with no other objections before or after. Keep a stiff upper lip and "consider it pure joy...when you encounter trials of many kinds..." (James 1:2).
But you know one of the things I find so comforting about Jesus? He voted "no" to his circumstances. "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me" (Matthew 26:39a).
If it's possible.
If it's possible, I'd really like to avoid a kiss from my betrayer.
If it's possible, I'd really like to avoid being slapped and spit on by the chief priests and Sanhedrin.
If it's possible, I'd really like to avoid being flogged, with a crown of thorns then smashed on my head.
If it's possible, I'd really like to avoid having my hands and feet pierced with nails, my side sliced open with a sword, my mother left to watch me die.
If it's possible, I'd really like to avoid the cross.
If it's possible, may this cup be taken from me.
This picture of Jesus tells me I have permission to vote no to my circumstances. I have permission to say out loud to God, "If it's possible, let this pain and suffering be taken from me, let it pass me by." I can say those things to him and not feel the need to shrink in the process, to feel like some sort of fraudulent, wimpy Christian for admitting I would really like suffering to pass me by. If Jesus himself in his humanity could admit he wanted to avoid pain and suffering, then I should have no less permission to do the same.
God is big enough for those declarations. The God who was big enough to handle the vulnerable and honest expressions of his own heavenly Son in Gethsemane is the same God who is big enough to handle the objections of his very earthly daughter who is made from dust (Psalm 103:14). David instructs us in Psalm 62:8, "Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." Have at it, David is saying. Pour out your heart to God and hold nothing back. Don't withhold your objections, your grief, your sadness, your sorrow. He says similarly in Psalm 142:2, "I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble." Pour it all out, and just when you think you're done pouring, pour some more. God will not drown under the weight of your grievances. You will not leave him gasping for air.
But -
There's always that pesky word, isn't there?
But while we have permission to vote no to our pain, our suffering, our trials, our tribulations, and while we have permission to say to God we would really prefer certain things not come to pass in our lives, our declarations cannot end on that note. They must not.
Jesus followed his sentence in the garden with, "If it's possible...Yet not as I will, but as you will."
Yet not as I will.
Quite possibly the five hardest words a believer will ever have to utter. As Christians, particularly in our moments of suffering and pain, we must narrow the amount of time which lapses between the words "If it's possible..." and "Yet not as I will." The longer the space between those two statements, the greater the inclination toward disobedience and rationalization. We must not allow our pain to eclipse our view of God and his character. Some days that will feel like an all-out-war, a war it seems you are very much losing because your pain is shouting so very loud, discoloring and distorting all you know to be true.
But somehow - somehow - even when we want to vote no to our circumstances, our yes must eventually rise up. It need not even be said with confidence; we can say it in weakness, with fear and trembling and timid faith, but faith nonetheless. God is no less put off by our feeble yes than he was by our pain-driven no.
So, cast your vote.
Jesus is big enough for your no.
And your yes.
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