Purpose for Pain
There isn’t a person alive who has not experienced pain. All members of the human race have the potential to experience pain of one sort or another. Whether self-inflicted, imposed by other people or random environmental factors, life is often very painful.
If you’ve read my blog before, you are probably aware that my life started out with a great deal of pain and trauma. I know people who have suffered worse, some to whom life has dealt some very bad blows. I don’t propose to have a reason for such painful experiences. I do, however, believe that purpose may be found.
- Pain produces perspective. Often, when we are experiencing great pain, it is the only thing we see. If we can look past the grief and pay attention to the other people around us we realize that we are not alone. Not alone in our pain, but not alone in our healing either. We help each other get through this life.
- Pain has the potential to produce empathy. Scripture tells us the we should comfort others with that which we have been comforted. That’s why we have so many support groups. One who has had cancer for example can now fully understand the complexities of that experience. They can relate like no one else.
- Pain can build strength. If someone has broken a bone, when it heals, it grows back stronger than it was originally. We can find the same kind of resilience with emotional or mental trauma when we rely on the supernatural Word of God used as medicine. For example, when a previously abused person is fully persuaded that they are valuable and that they were created on purpose in the imagination of the Creator of the universe, that one is more confident than ever before. They know that the abuser is at fault and that the abuse never reflected their value as a person.
- Pain can draw us into a right relationship with the truth. When we were little, Mom told us not to touch the stove. If you did, you know the truth about heat. When we make bad decisions, the painful consequences reveal the truth about good and bad choices.
- Pain reveals relationships. Everyone in pain has coping mechanisms: some good, some bad, some cause others to be inspired and some cause others to be repulsed. No matter what the response to pain is, it will reveal true friendships and genuine love versus superficial, opportunistic relationships.
- Pain reminds us that we are not the supreme being in this world. It keeps us humble. If I were in charge there would never be any pain, but that would negate the valuable purposes for pain.
- Pain brings clarity to the cross. There is horizontal and vertical aspects to the cross. The vertical is superior, it’s more pronounced, representing our relationship to our Heavenly Father and the horizontal represents our relationship to other earthbound people. We need each other, just as we need God. Jesus’s pain at the cross had the ultimate purpose. He became sin for us, so that we could be reconciled to a completely Holy God. By His stripes we are healed. He was bruised for our iniquity and the chastisement for our peace was upon Him. That means He took all of the punishment that we deserve and replaces it with His peace.
There are more Purposes to be found. What purposes have you found in your life?