" Misunderstanding what God says when it says 'God is love' they think God itends [a painfree life], and hence they conclude that anything [that brings pain] indicates either that Gods wisdom, or power, or both, have broken down...God's wisdom is not and never was, pledged to make a fallen world happy , or to make ungodliness uncomfortable." J.I. Packer, "Knowing God"
I struggled with this for years, and eventually came to the same conclusion, though I could never put it in words as elegant as this. Pain in my life is not just a symptom of sin. It is a part of the plan of God for my life. God uses struggle and pain as a tool to teach me the lessons I need to learn in order to serve him and to glorify him. God is clear in his message that the purpose of my creation is to praise him and to enter into relationship with him. But just as pain is often an integral part of lessons learned in how to deal with this life for children (children in the house have taught me that almost no lesson learned is completely painfree), so it is also often an integral part in learning the lessons God has to teach me about how to live with and interact with him.
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That book is next on my list, after The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer.
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