Pain. The word itself causes
discomfort, and the sound of the word is quite annoying. ”Pain.” It’s
likely the mere mention of the word has brought a uncomfortable
situation or event to mind, as if it was waiting to be released to
plague you again. My apologies. Maybe we should pontificate the word
pleasure instead. Ah, “Pleasure”. It just rolls off the tongue like
candy. Ironically, without pain, pleasure would be elusive and wholly
incomplete. Without the experience and awareness of something broken
and missing, wholeness has no meaning, like candy with no flavor; we
know it should taste good, we even want it to taste good. But it
doesn’t taste at all.
While I generally choose to avoid
painful situations myself, I have grown to appreciate the value of
unrest and discomfort, producing a longing for something better. A
number of years ago I injured my back while playing with my children. I
didn’t realize how good my back felt, until it didn’t. I didn’t
realize how healthy I was, until I wasn’t. My children didn’t realize
how fun dad was, until he wasn’t. Put another way, without the presence
of pain we are not apt to recognize and appreciate it’s absence.
Otherwise known as wholeness or goodness. I don’t mean to trivialize
deep wounds that may have been inflicted upon you, pain so deep and
wretched few could comprehend. If you carry that kind of pain, may God
grant you rest and peace.
Pain is always a symptom of something
else, not the problem itself. Broken relationships, difficult physical
conditions, unattended longings. They all produce this feeling of pain
and drive a desire inside us for something better. Paul describes
Jesus as the man that “God raised up, having loosed the pains of death:
because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” (Acts
2:24) The “pains of death”. It’s quite possible Paul was indicating
that Jesus’ death was painful, or that death in general is painful.
It’s also possible that Paul was relating pain and death, as if they are
similar in nature. In either case, he goes on to say it is not
possible for Jesus to be constrained by either pain or death. Whatever
ails you today, it cannot constrain Jesus working in you. May He use
your pain, my pain, to help us see, taste and long for something better.
Lord, give us eyes to see your
goodness. Help us embrace our pain, and somehow better know pleasure as
a result. Thank you for sending Jesus, who could not be constrained by
pain and death. Help me trust Him with my pain, and believe He is able
to meet me in it, and somehow overcome it as well.
~Wes Mace
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