The Purpose of Pain

I’ve been thinking often of the hard things of life. How we have a tendency towards recoiling from pain and finding any means of escaping a hard and thorny path.

Perhaps it’s because I’m on the brink of delivering our second baby.

It’s true, you forget so much of the hardship endured when the sweet face of your own baby looks up into yours. But there’s nothing quite like the final weeks of pregnancy that start bringing the waves of reminders of the pain that is looming around the corner.

I look back over weeks of purchasing supplies, tinctures and who knows what else, all with the hope that each item will bring some bit of comfort in the process I’m about to embark on.

Of course, it’s not wrong to be well prepared and to use the resources provided.

But what I can’t escape - there are unpleasant moments ahead of me.

There is a great mountain of pain to be journeed through.

And that is okay. It is not wrong. Because pain often begets the most beautiful treasures.

I look around at our world full of helpful tips and promised fixes and easily see that humanity has this one thing in common - we do not like pain.

We want the reward without the need to endure through anything.

I can nod my head to those who do not have an understanding of Christian living. After all, I often wonder how anyone can face anything of hardship without the comfort that Jesus gives.

But I wonder at our own fight against it? Those of us who study the Word of God and are familiar with its passages.

How do we explain our own shrinking from hardship? Or perhaps, our constant effort given to reduce its presence in our lives?

I remember a quote I came across many years ago, “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle." - Philips Brooks

We are a generation seeking ease.

We do not merely want comfort - we expect it.

We view anything that has caused pain or difficulty in our lives as an enemy to be hated.

But what do we find in the New Testament? Men and women who endured more hardship, sacrifice and physical pain than we can wrap our minds around.

The example of Paul alone is enough to remind us all of the life we should be expecting, rather than a comfortable passage through life.

Had Paul been expecting ease, he would have turned back at the first insult and ridicule he suffered. I think perhaps, a turning back that would be applauded and encouraged in our day and age.

Had Paul been living in today’s world, he would have had ample opportunity to fester in a world of bitterness. He would have had a wide open door to delve up the emotions that his first encounter to persecution had brought to him and a plethora of self-help books to ease the ache and bring him solace as he found a road to healing from the injury caused.

But what do we find instead?

These words, spoken after countless encounters with immense suffering: “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14)

We are not good at forgetting. We are very good at looking back. We are very good at dwelling often on our hurts to ensure that we do not experience them ever again.

Perhaps Paul’s message to us today would be one of reminding us of this - to expect the pain and sorrow and to count it all as nothing compared to the worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.

Isn’t that what we find in scripture?

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12)

I am often caught by surprise.

Surprised and determined to not allow it to happen again.

Surprised and quick to see it only as an enemy to be fought.

But oh, how many of the Scriptures recounts would be missing had those saints who have gone before us gone and believed a self-help version of the call of Christ.

How few heroes we would have to read of. How little the message of Christ would have been preached.

Perhaps our trouble today is that we are not actually acquainted with the reality of Christ.

We do not know His preciousness.

We do not understand the power given to us.

We do not understand the wealth and riches of knowing our Creator God.

Those who went before us understood these things intimately.

They also understood the call - to come and die.

A dead person does not seek after comfort. A dead person does not shrink back from hardship. A dead person does not feel they have a fitting excuse to go another way or even to slow the pace.

They are dead. Only Christ is left.

What He desires is what takes place, and they are all the better for it.

Our call is the same - to come and die.

But why?

That Christ might be made visible in our lives. That the glory of our King Jesus might be made evident in our faint flicker of life on this earth.

We need not recoil from pain when we have a promise of eternal beauty and bliss before us.

That is where the pain washes away. That is where the joy is fully realized. Not here.

Here we would all do well to follow after Paul - to keep our gaze fixed ahead, not on the things of the past. Not on the hurts we have tasted. Not on the words another has spoken.

Christ is enough for us to press on. (Give thought to the word press here - it reveals that there is a friction, a tension to moving forward. The road is not meant to be easy. We will need to press forward with decision and determination.)

Our joy is found in the midst of enduring to the end.

It is then that I think we all might realize - that the pain and sorrow of this world can not touch a child of God.

Earthly weapons have no power on a soul that has been redeemed by the blood of Christ.