“Sometimes pain can teach us lessons that we didn’t think we needed, or even wanted to know.”

Could you even imagine a world without pain? I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to feel no pain or sorrow, and by faith I believe what God’s Word promises about what we will experience in Heaven in Revelations 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” For now, while living in this broken world filled with so much pain, and sorrow, it’s hard to even fathom a life with no pain. Obviously pain is relative. It can range from the aches, and pains of getting older. The pain of feeling worthless, and discarded when you lose a job. The pain of rejection, or betrayal when a spouse decides they don’t love you any more. The debilitating pain of losing a child or spouse to an untimely death. Since God is Omnipotent, then why doesn’t He take away our pain? I know He didn’t cause it, but He certainly allows it! Why? Is there a purpose to the pain we experience? If so, how can we discover that purpose, and then use it for our good, and His glory?

I remember watching a show about a child that felt no pain. She couldn’t feel a pinch, a broken bone, a gun shot, a cut . . . No Pain at all! I couldn’t even imagine a life without some kind of pain, and she couldn’t imagine what pain would feel like. Most of us would think that it would be wonderful to live pain free; however, to those born with this very rare condition, it’s not wonderful, it’s deadly! CIP (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain) is very rare, but even rarer to find someone who is still living with it. Most children born with CIP die at a young age, because it turns out that pain is crucial to our survival! If you experience no pain, you don’t know when to stop doing something that is hurting you, if someone else is hurting you, or how to identify if, when, and where you’ve been hurt. As it turns out, pain is not something that can be taught, it is something that must be experienced in order to learn its value.

We typically don’t think of something that is painful as being valuable. The pain of labor can be excruciating at the time, but that pain of the cervix stretching, and the uterus contracting produces new life! The pain of daily drills at a military boot camp can seem cruel, and unnecessary, but it produces discipline, and mental toughness that will save lives. A sudden pain in your body can act as a life saving signal to a doctor of a much more serious problem, that otherwise would have gone undetected had it not been for the sudden pain. Society has conditioned us to think of pain only as something to be gotten rid of. “If you’re in pain take a drink, or pop a pill to get rid of it quick!” Is it any wonder why we live in a world of addiction? We don’t want to take the time to examine what is the root cause of our pain, and how we need to go about working through it. No! We treat pain as the enemy, and we want it to be gone now! Over time the very behavior we indulge in to get rid of the pain: drinking, taking pills, watching porn, gambling, eating, shopping, etc., causes even more pain than what we were originally trying to avoid! If you refuse to deal with pain in a healthy way, you will be like the child born with CIP. You won’t know when to stop doing things that are hurting you, because you’ve numbed yourself to the very thing trying to get your attention. Obviously, pain is not the real problem, and just getting rid of pain is not the real answer.

Usually when you’re experiencing pain the first thing a doctor will ask is “When did you first notice the pain?” Most of the time it’s necessary to go back to the roots to make sense of the fruits. I remember traveling home after an appointment one day, and the speaker in my car seemed to be going in and out. I kept fiddling with the volume, but the high pitched squeal just intensified, as the music seemed to fade. Then, without notice the speaker seemed to blow. The most terrible squeal, and then explosive sound I’d ever heard, except it wasn’t the speaker in my car. It was in my ear! I went to the doctor the next day thinking my ears were the problem. As the doctor examined me, and began to ask questions like “How long have you been this fatigued?, When did you first start having the headaches, notice the pain in your stomach, etc.?”, I realized how many signs (pains) I had been ignoring. The next day I received a phone call from the doctor telling me I had a full blown case of “mono”, my spleen was enlarged, my blood work was a mess, and I needed to be in bed! Wait . . . .What? How could this be: I was in my 40’s, I was in the height of my career, I was chasing a big goal, I didn’t have time to be on bed rest, and surely she was wrong! Isn’t it amazing how quickly we can see the root cause of rotten fruit in someone else’s life, yet be so blinded to our own? Fruit in our life (good or bad) NEVER just shows up by chance, but ALWAYS by choice! Sometimes God allows pain as a signpost to keep us on the path to producing good fruit! Yet, a lot of pain is experienced simply because we live in a broken world due to man’s original choice to disobey God, and want to be in charge of our own life. It’s so easy to say when things are going good “I did that!”, and when we experience deep pain, because of choices we made to say “Where’s God, why did He cause this?”. Pain was never God’s plan. Only a gracious, loving, Heavenly Father redeems the very pain WE caused, and uses it as the gateway for our Salvation! 1John 2:2

Father, forgive me when I wonder, question, doubt, or blame You for my pain. Help me to find Your purpose in the pain, and to use that pain as a platform to point people to You! I stand on Your Promise in 1Peter 5:10 “In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.” Thank You Father!