O, The Pain!
I heard someone once say, “I wouldn’t mind pain if it didn’t hurt so bad!” Unhealthy people enjoy pain. The rest of us try to avoid it as much as possible. And, there many varieties of pain; physical, emotional, and, when a believer grieves the Holy Spirit, spiritual pain. But, not all pain is bad. Life begins with it. You can hear it in the groans of a woman in labor, and in the first wail of a newborn. Without it, we would not be able to avoid many serious injuries or to detect diseases before they become fatal. Pain can be a blessing.
C.S Lewis spoke about that blessing when he wrote in “The Problem of Pain:” (New York: MacMillan, 1962. Pp. 93, 95)
It may be conviction or the painful consequences of wrong decisions and motives, but pain can and ought to lead to repentance. In Romans 3, Paul quotes Isaiah in saying that all of us have “turned aside” and gone the wrong way. The best of us is as guilty as the worst of us, but God, in His mercy, sends the pain. John records in the Revelation that in the end times, pain will only drive men to curse God, but, thankfully, we are not there yet. There is opportunity to repent… if, we will feel the pain!
Where do you hurt? It is a loving God who will not spare the rod. It is time to get things right and to walk in His way. For a true believer, it is the only way to joy and true fulfillment.
C.S Lewis spoke about that blessing when he wrote in “The Problem of Pain:” (New York: MacMillan, 1962. Pp. 93, 95)
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a [morally] deaf world… Until the evil man finds evil unmistakably present in his own existence, in the form of pain, he is enclosed in illusion… No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”
It may be conviction or the painful consequences of wrong decisions and motives, but pain can and ought to lead to repentance. In Romans 3, Paul quotes Isaiah in saying that all of us have “turned aside” and gone the wrong way. The best of us is as guilty as the worst of us, but God, in His mercy, sends the pain. John records in the Revelation that in the end times, pain will only drive men to curse God, but, thankfully, we are not there yet. There is opportunity to repent… if, we will feel the pain!
Where do you hurt? It is a loving God who will not spare the rod. It is time to get things right and to walk in His way. For a true believer, it is the only way to joy and true fulfillment.