Requesting Relief From Trials

Only less than 10 days ago I found myself observing a debate among a group of Christians about how to respond to a particular trial.  A person representing one side of the argument made a claim that no man or woman of God has ever requested relief from trials--a universal proposition.  Since the person in question offered the claim via text message, I have replicated the message below:

"Furthermore, find me one apostle or disciple who ever asked God to give him or her less work or less pain.  You won't find one.  They asked for strength to walk through challenges, not ways to get out of them."

In this post I will challenge this unbiblical proposition, highlighting the danger of believing this claim and how the Bible utterly refutes it.  First of all, since no human has known every Christian man or woman from all of history, no one can assert that none of them asked for "less pain" without committing the logical fallacy of appeal to ignorance; but not only can no one support the assertion with any evidence whatsoever, the Bible provides positive examples of important figures who did indeed ask God to alleviate or prevent their suffering.

Crucially, Jesus did exactly what this man said no Christian has done as the following verses describe, the parenthetical inserts being mine.


Luke 22:41-42--"He (Jesus) withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them (the disciples), knelt down and prayed, 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.'"


As a basic reading of this passage indicates, even Jesus himself requested relief from the greatest trial of his life.  He asked God if he truly had to die, especially by crucifixion [1], because while he was willing to submit to God's will he did not find it immoral to ask for a path of escape.  Jesus serves as the ultimate example to imitate in all of Scripture, so the fact that he asked God if he could avoid his fate means that it is not sinful for us to do the same.


2 Corinthians 12:7-9--"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"


In blatant contradiction with the claim I described at the beginning of this post, Paul clearly asked God more than once for less pain.  Job also pursued relief from God.


Job 6:8-9--"'Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to loose his hand and cut me off!'"


In addition to these passages, the book of Psalms and other books also contain pleas for God to intervene in the lives and trials of individuals.  If no Christian has ever sought relief from a trial from God, then the Bible is not a sound basis of Christian doctrine!  The idea that people who want alleviation of pain and difficulty are sinning by having such a desire is a destructive lie that the Bible regularly refutes.  To propose that no Christian can or should ask for reduction of suffering does not acknowledge the truth that many places in the Bible oppose such an idea, but it also, in the minds of those who believe this error, can lead to great amounts of false guilt.  Telling people in the midst of agonizing trials that they should not seek help or relief is to heap a fallacious abuse of reason and Scripture onto those already in personal pain.

I wrote this post out of frustration with someone who should have known better than to make a claim about Christians and the Bible that is drenched in absurdity, error, fallacies, and a spirit that resembles Stoicism, not Christianity!  I hope that those who agree with his statement will reflect on the issue and recognize that the Bible and logic contradict their belief.  Hopefully any who read this will either remember--or realize for the first time--that God does not expect the creatures he loves to submit to any trial or injustice without asking him for their trials to end.  After all, Jesus himself did not believe the alternative.  And if any Christian wants to oppose the example of Jesus, they have lost credibility in this area and the right to be listened to about the matter.


[1].  Jesus had to die for the gospel to come to fruition, but he did not have to be crucified.  Yet the prospect of crucifixion certainly would have increased his anxiety in this chapter.