God's Purpose For Pain

  God's Purpose For Pain-I admit that I have been dealing with some pain
lately that has been keeping me awake at night. One night, I thought, as I
can't sleep anyway, I may as think about what to write in my next blog. Not
having a clue, I started to pray about it. The thought crossed my mind to
write about pain. That went over like a lead balloon! I came very came very
close to arguing with God about it but then I decided that it would be
smarter to just write about it and not risk deliberate disobedience to God. So I am
writing about God's purposes for allowing pain in a born-again Christian's
life.

When I mention pain, it is physical but it can also be emotional. I suspect
that the main reason that God allows pain is to genuineness of our faith. It
is easy to say we have faith when we are in good health and everything is going the
way we want. A different story, though, when we are suffering, either
physically or through various emotional traumas. That is when we show our true
faith. Will we stick it out or turn tail and run?

Another reason that I believe that God allows pain in a Christian's life is
to develop godly character. All these wonderful things like patience, endurance , steadfastness and longsuffering are best developed in times of pain. If one is is always in good health and things are great , what need is there to develop these qualities? To be honest, I wish there were another way to develop these characteristics but there isn't so I just have to suck it up and believe that God knows best.

Pain, whatever kind, is an opportunity to demonstrate godly character. It is easy to show Jesus to the world when everything is hunky-dorey but not so easy when there is pain to cope with. That is when we often have force godly character out of us. Things like love, joy, peace, etc. I often feel like I flunked this one. I don't do pain well so not everything that comes out of me is too godly.

Another thing about pain is that it makes us more appreciate times when there is no pain. It is human nature that , before any kind of pain, we take our health and well-being for granted. But, after a period of pain, when it is restored, people sure do appreciate health and well-being a lot more. I know that, once my health is returned to me, I sure won't take it for granted!

A final word. When God allows pain in a Christian's life, there is a time limit to the pain. It won't last forever. Although I know that, when you are in the middle of the pain, it sure seems like it is never ending.