Unexpectedly struck with bone-on-bone arthritis after having lived an active life which has included painting signs; painting houses; climbing ladders to paint billboards; mixing cement; rock work, and walking and running long distances—I had to wonder why. I love God. Why so much pain?

I already knew that God never intended pain, illness, death, and sorrow to be in the world. He created Adam and Eve and gifted them with a perfect world. They would have lived forever without tasting the sour fruits of pain, death, illness, or sorrow if they had obeyed the one rule God gave them: do not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

They ate the fruit. Sin entered the world. The first animal died. Years later, Adam and Eve died. Sin births death, illness, pain, sorrow.

Today I realized something else. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

If Christians were automatically protected from every adverse condition in the world—where would be the need for faith?

When we can praise God in every circumstance, good and bad, and recognize as Job did, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God,” we are exercising faith.

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