Have you ever struggled with trying to find a purpose behind your pain? Maybe it’s a sickness that has lingered far too long. Perhaps it’s a long-standing medical ailment that will only get worse over time, accompanying you for the rest of your mortal days.
Maybe it’s a relationship that’s causing you pain, other family members unable to get a handle on life and you’re left suffering the collateral damage. Perhaps it’s a job that drains you or a boss whose only aim in life is to make you miserable. Or maybe your pain has to do with your faith. God is silent; God is absent; God isn’t answering your prayers.
Pain on some level will always be ever-present in your life, but you don’t need to walk through life struggling to find a purpose behind your pain. One of the reasons Christians look to Scripture for guidance and wisdom is because truth never changes and human nature never changes, so God’s Word written thousands of years ago still applies to us today. In the first century, James started his letter to the early Christians with a reminder about five ways your pain has a purpose, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4, NIV). Your pain has a purpose
You discover your own strength.
When James talks about the trials of life he describes them as a test, but not so God can see how strong you are. God already knows that. Pain is an opportunity not for God to see how strong you are, but for you to see how strong you are. If you wanted to see how much weight you could bench press at the gym, the only way to find that out would be to continue to put on more and more weight until you discovered your threshold, your limit. In the same way, pain is the only way to truly discover how strong you really are. And in Christ, you are much stronger than you think.
Pain expands your endurance.
When you’re tested through the fires of pain, what’s forged on the other side is perseverance, endurance. If you’ve never ran more than a couple of hundred yards in your life, it doesn’t matter how much you would want to, your body couldn’t physically run a marathon tomorrow. It simply doesn’t have the endurance built up. If you’re training to run a marathon for the first time, you don’t start out by running a marathon. You run a mile. And then you run three. And then you run five, and so on. Over time, your body builds up the endurance necessary to handle the herculean task of running a full marathon. In the same way, pain expands your endurance and gives you the herculean ability to persevere through even the most difficult of circumstances. There is no easy way to build up endurance. You simply have to endure something. purpose.
Pain matures you.
When perseverance finishes its work you are mature, and maturity helps you see the world differently. A three year old sees the world very differently than a thirty-three year old. When a three year old doesn’t get their way, they’ll pitch a fit and scream, roll on the floor and kick anything in sight. Being a three year old gives you full license to pitch a fit when you don’t get your way. But when you’re thirty-three you see the world differently. You don’t drop on the floor and pitch a fit when things don’t work out for you. Your perspective has changed because you have matured over the years. One of the side benefits of pain is the incredible maturation process that helps anyone who’s ever had to walk through pain for an extended amount of time. Let us pray with you request a prayer today and our Pastors are standing by to pray with you.
