Pain

Know ye not that…ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Pain – it isn’t fun at all, and many of us are either in pain and suffering over something, or we will be. Jesus told the disciples “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Notice He didn’t say you may have some hard times – he said we WILL have troubles. Have you known anyone in your life who you admired who doesn’t have a story to hard times they went through and overcame? What about yourself? What did you overcome? A hard childhood, a rough relationship, a troubled crisis or other life changing event that made you into the person you are today?

Consider the following from an Oswald Chambers devotional:

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The first thing God does with his saints is to get them based on rugged spiritual reality. When we are spiritually real, we don’t care what happens to us individually; we only care that God gets his way for the purpose of his redemption. Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreak?

Heartbreaks are doorways that God is opening into fellowship with his Son. Most of us collapse at the first sign of heartbreak or pain. We sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose, then turn to the people around us for sympathy.

So-called Christian sympathy will soothe us all the way to our deathbeds! God never soothes us when what we need is to be roused; God comes with the grip of the pierced hand of his Son and says, “Arise; shine. Enter into fellowship with me.”

If through a broken heart God can bring his purposes to pass in the world, thank him for breaking your heart.

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God works that way. Metal becomes a useful instrument when heated in the forge and beaten with the hammer. If is the scars of life that help us show others that this life and the troubles it contains are not meant to shape and define us.

We are to be called His children and use the trials we have survived to help others by pointing them to Christ. Our stories are meant for nothing more than showing how God moved in us so others have the same hope. They should never be used to show how strong we were or glorify our struggles but to bring glory to the One who is our strength.

The days are short and the time is coming when our Lord is coming for His bride. Until that time, the blessed hope should inspire us to be a light to those in this fallen and dark world.