As a father of six children, I’ve dealt with more than a few cuts and bruises–and the most dreaded of all–splinters. Before a splinter was pulled, the fear of pain was almost always greater than the pain itself. For this reason, each of my children resisted attempts for healing.
This reminds me of our spiritual lives. There is a widespread false belief in modern Christianity that walking by faith should be pain-free. This lie, coupled with our fear of pain, keeps us from following Christ. We earnestly pray, “Lord, increase our faith! Just don’t let it hurt.” We even occasionally decide whether or not we are “in the will of God” by how much pain or discomfort we experience. But we must remember there is an upside to pain. For example, it strips us of the illusion of self-sufficiency.
I recently had a reminder of my own limitations when I injured my foot during our move to Atlanta. Hundreds of trips up and down the stairs with boxes caused a ligament on my foot to become severely inflamed. But I pressed on. After seven weeks of chronic discomfort, God performed a miracle. I went to the doctor! For guys, that’s the medical equivalent of stopping to ask for directions.
A prescription, an orthopedic shoe, and a week later, I felt radically better–but only after the pain forced me to acknowledge that I couldn’t make it on my own.
Contrary to what we often think, pain, suffering, and discomfort are often the only things able to strip us of the delusion that we don’t need anything or anyone to thrive in God’s universe. The Lord uses discomfort to gently awaken us from our hazy illusion of self-reliance. He uses pain to convince us that the fairy tale we tell ourselves–that we are our own god–is actually a nightmare. He uses suffering to remove our pride.
C.S. Lewis described our ancestors, and thus our condition, in his classic work The Problem of Pain:
They wanted, as we say, to “call their souls their own.” But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not, in fact, our own. They wanted some corner of the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.
Are you experiencing emotional, physical, or spiritual pain? Have you considered how God may be using it to decrease your trust in your own understanding and increase your faith in Him?
This post was written by Bill Blankschaen
