I don’t know about you, but I try to avoid pain and any type of suffering as much as I can. However, pain is very necessary in life. It protects us and enables us to survive and even thrive. Not being able to feel pain can be very dangerous and could potentially be life threatening. I have a friend who cannot feel pain in some parts of her body. Unfortunately, there are times when she is getting burnt by the fire on the stove, but she doesn’t know until she smells her flesh burning. You may not like to hear this, put pain is a gift from God, which alerts us of danger not only physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. When we feel pain then we will know that there is something that needs to be adjusted or corrected.
There was a time when my left shoulder would dislocate often. I would be in excruciating pain. Having it put back in place was sometimes even worse pain if I was not put to sleep. I have come to realize through this ordeal that when we are dislocated physically, emotionally or spiritually we can not only be in great pain, but we can also cause great pain to those around us. I have struggled with people who have tried to hold me down to get my shoulder back in and it would be a painful process for them too. Getting back into the place where God wants us to be can bring about great hurt, but it is essential. The people who are trying to help the hurting can get hurt themselves. Jesus understood this. He came to save us from the sickness of sin, and so He faced the pain which we deserved.
However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, and our pains that He carried; Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, struck down by God, and humiliated. But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5
Not only was there purpose to Jesus’ pain, but His pain brought Him to His purpose. He redeemed us through His blood that was spilt on the cross of Calvary. He was pierced so that we would not perish. How many of us would suffer for people who rejected us and actually caused us great harm? Yet, Jesus did this for us. The Bread of Life became broken bread so we could feast at His Father’s table.
I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh. John 6:51
We often hear people say that they are waiting on God to give them their breakthrough. But to get our breakthrough we first need to be broken. We cannot go around in our pride and self-confidence and expect God to exalt us. Instead, we must humble ourselves before Him and rely on Him alone. He wants us to go to Him with a broken spirit and a contrite heart. (See Psalm 51:17).
For this is what the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15
God is willing and able to restore us from brokenness. We just need to bring all our hurts to Him. However, we cannot expect everything to be fixed immediately. The period of healing can be painful and lengthy. The Lord is our Great Physician and He knows the best cure for whatever ails us. Sometimes He will allow us to go through pain much longer that we would like because He is using our suffering to eradicate sin and take away anything in our lives that does not please Him. We must examine our pain and why we suffer. Some suffering are of our own making because of our wrong choices. Sometimes our decisions come from our emotions, which are often distorted that results in bad consequences. However, it is up to us to learn from our mistakes and not wallow in self-pity. We must never forget that we are God’s masterpiece, and as He shapes us into His precious vessel we will have to experience pain. But He assures us that He is with us through the waters and He is with us through the fire. (See Isaiah 43:2). And during these times we are getting into a closer relationship with Him, while we discover more about His holiness and goodness. When we go through difficult times with anyone our relationship can get stronger if we stay together. And as we get deeper with God we must also come to realize that we cannot choose how we suffer. Oswald Chambers explains this in Utmost for His highest.
God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
We must not give up even when the pain seems unbearable, because God will give us the grace to persevere. There are times when I have wondered why God won’t heal me physically or take away my emotional pain. I knew it is not because of lack of prayer. However, over the years when I have had to endure my afflictions, I recognized God’s work in my life during those challenging seasons. The fact is God has allowed me to suffer because He loves me and wants me to depend on Him only. He has been using the trials to teach me to trust Him and to walk in His truth. In order to build a better edifice, the old one has to be torn down and a deeper foundation has to be constructed so that the building can go higher and be built stronger. The process can be tedious and grueling, but God is a Master Builder and when He takes away the old and starts bringing in the new, we may feel weak and weary during this construction period, but God has His eyes on us, and we are firmly placed in His hands. Don’t worry because when we are weak, He is strong.
Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Well, I must say that it is difficult for me to take pleasure in my distressing situations and when I am treated badly, but knowing we are in God’s will gives us the strength to endure hardships. We should take delight in pleasing God. However, if we try to avoid pain, we may not be in God’s will. I am amazed when I look at Acts 16 and read how the Holy Spirit blocked the apostles from going into certain areas but sent them to a place where they would be beaten and thrown into prison. Nevertheless, they never stopped praising God and in the midnight hour when a violent earthquake came and their chains fell off, they never left. I would have escaped quickly while thanking God for setting me free. But they remained because their purpose there was the salvation of the jailer and his household. Our suffering it is not just for us. When we suffer well, others will see the reflection of Christ in us and may want to know Him more.
We must also be careful not to interfere when someone we love is suffering, or else we may be hindering their spiritual growth in Christ. We do not want to see or loved ones in pain. That is normal, but we must love them enough to let God deal with them in His way. He loves them so much more than we ever could. Jesus is their Savior and not us, so we must be careful not to be the one others depend on and thereby getting in the way of them relying on God. We will do more harm than good in this case. However, there are times we should be there to help, but we must ask God for guidance to see how best to give support. We need to be in a close relationship with the Lord in order to be able to do this, and He will give us His wisdom and discernment. I believe Oswald Chambers again had a good way of stating this in Utmost for His Highest.
It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t.” You put your hand right in front of God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?” …Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
We cannot keep on running away from pain and suffering. God may be using our pain not only for our gain, but also for bringing others to Him. Sometimes we must confront the pain, examine it and deal with it. We need to find the source of the pain to see if we need to make changes in our lifestyle and thought patterns. Pain can show us a lot about ourselves and exactly what is going on with our heart. It is sometimes when we feel pressed on every side that our true selves come out. But is this true self a reflection of Christ? If not, it is time to be renewed, but first we may have to repent and seek the Father’s intervention. We need to stop blaming God for our problems and start taking responsibility for doing things our way and not His way, and then get back on His path having the Holy Spirit guide us every step of the way. Following God is not easy, and suffering is a part of the course, but knowing He is with us and is working all things for good, while giving us grace to continue on the journey should give us great joy.
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