There is a purpose in painful situations. It is not a waste of emotions and feelings. God is working in our painful experiences. If we subscribe to the notions of false preachers who purport that saints cannot and should not go through tough times, we shall rob ourselves of the opportunity to know God in ways only painful moments can afford. 

Life consists of many seasons: birth, growth, education, work, graduation, and death. Feelings and experiences often beyond our control are spread out between those seasons. Firstly, we have the experiences of happiness that come from events around us, which cause us much gladness. We all want to be caught up in endless days of joy, happiness, and gladness because, as they say, a merry heart is a good medicine (Proverbs 17:22). Secondly, we have experiences of pain caused by sickness, traumas of life, and death. We naturally do not want to be in a state of pain for long because pain crushes the spirit and deprives us of the joy of life. We, to a great extent, may not have control of these circumstances; however, we can choose to learn from them and become who God is preparing us to be through it all.
So, why should we seek to face pains in our lives rather than avoiding them?
Pain Builds Perseverance
Our pain is not a waste of feelings because God uses it to develop in us a heart of perseverance (the ability to withstand pressure during tough times). Good times do not give the human heart mental strength and tenacity like painful times. In the pains of life, we stretch our mental muscles, training them to be resilient and forge forward, especially in times of adversity. James 1:2-4 reminds us to count it all joy when we meet trials of every kind. Why? Because it produces a critical growth path for us – we become complete and lack in nothing. Also, James says that at the end of perseverance is an eternal inheritance – the crown of life (James 1:12). Paul reiterates this thought in Romans 5:3-5 in his appeal to the Romans. Most objectively, pain builds our character and hope. Athletes who beat their bodies through pain exhibit more discipline and perform much better in the races than those who lazied themselves in basic training without physical challenge. That is what the mind of one who runs away from pain will become – unfit for the pressures of life awaiting. Don’t run!
Pain is Seasonal and Purposeful
Secondly, we need not avoid pain because the truth is that pain is not eternal but seasonal. That means it comes and goes. In this world, scripture reminds us there is time for everything under the sun (Eccl. 3:1-8). Knowing that pain will not always be there lets us learn from it when it comes, allowing us to depend on God for strength for that season. The Psalmist says that even in the valley of the shadow of death, the good Shepherd is there with us. And just as every season has its purpose, Paul points out that the purpose of afflictions and pain is to renew our inner man (2 Cor. 4:16) while it prepares for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17-18). The other purpose pain has is helping us to focus on the things eternal and not things tertiary and temporary. In Jeremiah 29:11, one of the most misquoted and misapplied scriptures, God reached out to his people, Israel, while they were in captivity under cruel masters and reminded them of his plan. Though the time for their freedom was 70 years to come, God told them that their captivity and slavery were within his plan to accomplish his purpose. He knew his plans were for their ultimate good, not evil. Don’t run!
Pain is a Sanctifying Tool in God’s Hands
Sanctification is the process God uses to make the believer more and more into the person of Christ. It means to purify and make whole. In 2 Cor. 12:1-10, Paul shares his incredible experience with the Lord and how he used infirmity to teach him humility – a character quality we must all have to represent Christ effectively (Philippians 2:1-11).
In addition to this example, scripture is replete with the stories of people who endured suffering and pain as God molded them into the people he wanted them to be. Think about Job, who learned to trust God through the darkest patches of life, refrained from cursing God (Job 2:9), avoided talking ill of him, and praised him in the storm.
God also sends sufferings and trials to help us build positive Christian character, weaning us from sin. According to James, various trials produce perseverance, making us mature, complete, and lacking nothing (James 1:2-4). The one who learns to focus on God in times of pain will find these moments as a catapult in the hands of God, ready to plunge them into deeper levels of relationship and growth in the Lord.
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In a recent op-ed for the U.K. Sunday Times, Douglas Murray observed that the reason the wheels have come off the #MeToo movement is that it discredited itself by overstating its case and conflating unmistakable instances of abuse with messy adult entanglements. “The MeToo movement had some cases that were very clear-cut. Others were not,” he wrote. “And the insistence that a historic reckoning was occurring made the line between the two uncomfortably easy to breach.”
The same line-blurring could describe what is happening in the second-largest religious denomination in the U.S. (and the largest Protestant denomination). Known for its theological conservatism that includes reserving the pastorate for men, the nearly 15-million-member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is currently undergoing what many major media outlets are characterizing as a reckoning over sexual abuse.

Indeed, some go further, with ex-SBC leader Russell Moore calling it an “apocalypse” and evangelical pundit David French calling it a “horror,” proof the denomination does not merely contain some bad apples, but is, in fact, a “diseased” orchard.

While purple prose has been flowing freely in regards to the SBC, little of it has bothered to detail what the apocalypse looks like in hard statistical terms. That’s likely because, according to the recently released report generating all the coverage, a total of 409 accused abusers were found over the course of 21 years in approximately 47,000 SBC churches.
Bombshell
Lyman Stone, demographer at the Institute for Family Studies, told me the actual data contained in the abuse report, the result of an eight-month investigation by Guidepost Solutions, does not come close to meriting the hyperbolic terms that are peppering coverage in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN.
“Statistically speaking,” he said, “there were not that many cases. This is not actually that common of a problem in this church body.”
Stone went on to estimate that there are about 100,000 to 150,000 staffers in SBC churches, but many thousands more volunteer in their ministries. Of all the allegations that Guidepost investigators reviewed, they found only two  that appear to involve current SBC workers.
“If you wanted to argue that based on this report, executives of the SBC mismanaged the cases that were brought to them, then fine,” Stone said. “But if you want to say this shows that [the SBC] is corrupt, hypocritical, and rife with sexual abuse — the report doesn’t demonstrate that.”
Stone added that he was shocked that Guidepost investigators only found two current cases, given how many exist in the general population. “I mean, if I had been betting beforehand, I would have bet for a couple of hundred,” he said. “Because if you’re talking about 100,000 to 150,000 people who are disproportionately men, just your baseline rate of sex offenders tells you, you should have gotten a couple thousand sex offenders in there just by random chance.”
He concluded that while the report may show the need for reforms in responding to allegations, it does not show an endemic problem of sexual abuse, adding, “It is important to distinguish these.”
Corroboration
Advocates like attorney and Larry Nassar victim Rachael Denhollander have argued that misconduct within the SBC isn’t just a question of numbers. They also take issue with the executive committee’s resistance to creating a public database of the “credibly accused,” assembled by third-party investigators like Guidepost. But a deep dive into how Guidepost handled the most prominent allegation of abuse in its SBC report should set off alarm bells for anyone interested in maintaining a biblical standard of justice.
From the broad outlines of Jennifer Lyell’s story, it’s easy to understand why the members of the executive committee might have felt some hesitation to unquestioningly label her as a victim of abuse.
In 2004, Lyell was a 26-year-old master of divinity student when she met cultural anthropology professor David Sills, who is 23 years her senior, on the Louisville campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Shortly after, she became close with the entire Sills family, including David’s wife, Mary, as well as his college-age son and teenage daughter. She alleges that it was on a mission trip with Sills and his daughter that Sills first “sexually acted” against her.
That incident, she says, began a pattern of abuse that lasted 12 years until she was 38, continuing even as she moved to Chicago in 2006 and, later, Nashville, to further her career in publishing. During the time that Lyell was a publishing executive, she often worked with Sills, contracting with him for books, and, arguably, holding more power over his career than he did over hers.
In essence, Lyell was claiming that Sills was able to continue committing acts of sexual abuse against her even after she’d left the state because she would return to visit the family.
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement and two years after her contact with Sills had ended, Lyell told her boss, Eric Geiger, at the Christian publisher Lifeway of the allegedly abusive relationship. Geiger, in turn, arranged a meeting with Southern Seminary’s president, Dr. Albert Mohler. In short order, Sills’ employment was terminated. A year then passed before Lyell provided her account to the Baptist Press for an article she hoped would present her as Sills’ victim.
As the house media organ of the SBC, the Baptist Press (BP) falls under the authority of the executive committee. When committee members read Lyell’s account, which did not contain any concrete description of violent behavior, in a March 2019 BP draft, they had doubts about framing it as she wanted, in part because they feared Sills might sue. They asked BP editors to replace the word “abuse” with “morally inappropriate relationship,” though the story retained a quote wherein Lyell accuses Sills of “grooming and taking advantage” of her. The editors informed Lyell of the change shortly before going to print.
Once the story was published, commenters on BP’s Facebook page criticized the fact that Sills had lost his job while Lyell had not, prompting her to demand BP restore the term “abuse” to the article or link to a statement from her rebutting their word choice.
Months of sporadic back-and-forth communications followed, in which committee members weighed options for coming to terms with Lyell. Then, at an October 2019 SBC conference on sexual abuse, Denhollander recounted Lyell’s story from the stage, identifying Sills by name and calling Lyell a “survivor of horrific predatory abuse” who was “cast away” by BP editors and the executive committee. Almost immediately after, Denhollander threatened the executive committee with a defamation suit on Lyell’s behalf.
Executive committee sources who agreed to speak with me anonymously say that the SBC’s insurance agency did not want to settle with Lyell, believing she did not have a strong case. But already facing bad press over Denhollander’s conference comments, committee members feared further fallout from dragging the issue out. In May 2020, the same sources say the committee paid Lyell just over $1 million, thinking that would be the end of the matter. It wasn’t.
When Guidepost issued its report on May 22, Lyell was by far the foremost accuser in it.
Again and again in the 35-plus pages that feature her case, Guidepost investigators claim Lyell’s version of events is “corroborated.” What that would mean in a police investigation is that witnesses offered other evidence against Sills. What it appears to have meant to Guidepost is that Lyell told her story to Geiger and Mohler, and both men said they believed it, according to the Baptist Press. In fact, Geiger, the first person to whom Lyell revealed the alleged abuse, told me Guidepost never even asked him to provide statements or evidence.
The report does briefly mention testimony from unnamed employees at Sills’ missions agency and his former pastor — referring to Dr. Bill Cook — but both Guidepost and the task force refused numerous requests to provide me with the agency staffers’ specific comments. And Dr. Cook told me that in his case, once again, all “corroborate” means is that he found Lyell’s story credible, not that he had any additional evidence to offer.
Guidepost defends its choice to refer to Sills as an “abuser” rather than an “alleged abuser” by noting that they didn’t find any evidence that “indicated that the interactions between Ms. Lyell and Professor Sills was anything but sexual abuse.”
Perhaps that’s because they weren’t looking very hard.
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“I remember sitting in prison, contemplating and even planning my suicide. I began to pray for the first time in a long time. I prayed that God would do something. I had lost everything. I got involved in AA and various drug programs and became substance-free. But I knew that still was not enough.”

I was brought up in a typical middle-class home on Long Island, NY. It was at about age 13 that I had my first gay sexual experience. Although at that time it seemed an innocent and isolated occurrence, little did I know the devastating effect it would have on my life.
Those early experiences led to 15 years of guilt and confusion. A move to the West Coast to attend college brought new freedoms that were damaging. The move enabled me to seek out gay bars and begin involvement in the gay life. This was something the small farming community from which I had come had not afforded me.
Never willing to face the loneliness of my life for very long, I found temporary peace in new surroundings. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, South Florida, and a year in Europe only enabled me to keep running away. I thought that I could find happiness in a constant stream of new people, new places, and new things. Although I was getting more involved in the gay life, I was still conscious of enough confusion to seek out psychiatrists. I found out that the psychiatrists often needed psychiatrists.
During this time, I also tried to push myself into heterosexual relationships, at times getting serious enough to come through with promises and diamond rings. I never could go through with it. Those years were characterized by guilt and misery.
By the age of 28, I just gave in. I rationalized and made the necessary excuses. I said, “Well, this is the way God made me and wants me. I’m gay, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.” So I dove into that for the next 15 years. Along the way I learned that alcohol dulled the pain (and hidden guilt). Alcohol enabled me to not feel, and a continual stream of brief relationships that meant nothing gave temporary relief.
Still looking for that ultimate “pain killer” at age 40, I got into crack, one of the most deadly drugs on the market. I don’t know how, but I did find success in business and money. I had all the material trappings of a successful yuppie. I was making a ton of money.
Then the bottom fell out. I was arrested for coke possession, spent one night in jail, and was released in the morning. Within a month I was arrested for possession of crack again. This time it hit the headlines of the newspaper in the small South Florida town in which I lived and worked. I was fired from my job and began a prison term.
I remember sitting in prison, contemplating and even planning my suicide. I began to pray for the first time in a long time. I prayed that God would do something. I had lost everything. I got involved in AA and various drug programs and became substance-free. But I knew that still was not enough.
As part of my parole, I landed a job in the Philadelphia area. I began to frequent gay bars again, but something wasn’t the same. I didn’t drink, but I would just sit there and look at all those lonely people. Only, somehow, I now couldn’t relate. Now I felt completely lost. I kept thinking, this is the only thing I’ve known. What am I going to do now? It was about this time that I read an ad in the newspaper for Harvest USA, which said there was help and hope for people like me!
Thank the Lord I found that ad. I called the number and went in and talked with John Freeman. He listened for a long time and then told me about Christ and how Jesus really cared about me and my problems. During that first appointment, I accepted Christ into my life.
It’s hard for me to understand and explain, but after that, my life changed dramatically. I began reading the Bible, praying, and developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had always known deep down that there must be some purpose to my life. Now I knew! Perhaps the biggest change has been that the loneliness and insecurity that plagued my life are gone. I’m a new man in Christ, and the Lord is my personal friend. It’s really unbelievable. No crack or cocaine can come near it.
In January 1989, about six months after giving my life to Christ, I faced a new problem. That month I went to the dermatologist to check out a patch of skin on my face. It turned out to be Kaposi’s sarcoma. I have AIDS. I have since begun the AZT treatment and the whole medication thing.
The Lord may heal me or he may not. That’s not in my control. The important thing is that the Lord is enabling me to deal with this. Even my own family has been extremely supportive. On a recent trip back home, my parents, though not Christians, perhaps summed it up best when they told me, “Steve, it really doesn’t matter if the Lord heals you or not. The crucial thing is that you’re healed in your heart!”
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