The Problem With Pain

“Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away. Job 16:6 (NIV) 

  

  Last spring, I was dismissed from my hospital stay for major surgery. Before they dismissed me, the physician wrote a prescription for a strong pain reliever medication. I was not in much pain as I left the hospital, and I seriously considered throwing the prescription for the pain medication away. But after several hours, whatever pain medication had been in my hospital IV wore off, and I was more than grateful for that pain reliever prescription. 

  When we are in serious pain we want relief. Nothing steals attention, grabs our focus, and pushes everything else in our life to the back of the line more than pain. 

  

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ---C.S. Lewis 

  

  When my generation were children, parents still believed in spankings to punish children for misdeeds. Those spankings worked. They got our attention because they caused us pain. And they made us behave because we did not wish to revisit the pain of punishment. 

  There is pain that is helpful. For instance, when a child first comes into contact with fire it is often a painful experience. Burns hurt. Such burns give a child a healthy respect and fear of fire. Yet not all such pain is helpful or instructive. 

  Disease, sickness, injuries, mental and emotional suffering, such pain is generally neither helpful nor beneficial. Yet even in such miserable circumstances if we turn to God, seek His help and healing, drawing close beneath his sheltering wings, there is the advantage of fellowship with God in our suffering.  

  Pain can make our existence intolerable no matter what the cause may be, yet with God can come peace, comfort, and restoration. When we focus upon God and call upon Him for aid, His presence in our pain gives meaning and hope in place of our misery. 

  

  Prayer: Dear Lord, our pain does not always quickly go away. Be with us in our pain, comfort us and give us peace in place of misery. Amen.