“Pain is only weakness leaving the body.”
pain
/pān/
- physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.
There is something very interesting about pain. What’s interesting is that it’s not the thing. What I mean is that we give pain a lot of focus and attention, but pain is really just a sign of something else.
…It is a signal that something is wrong.
…That a system is failing.
…That there is a malfunction of some sort and it is sending out a distress notice
And for the pain-in-the-butt that it is to deal with, it actually is a helper…without it, we most often would never know there is a problem.
The Kill
But we avoid pain at all cost. In fact, as a culture, we’re obsessed with feeling good and living pain-free. We want all gain, no pain. In truth, and if we’re honest, we can be so single-minded in pursuit of a painless life, that we let it affect our faith as well.
I know personally this has been true for me. I have been walking through a very difficult and painful season. And my first and consistent response has been to kill the pain. Smother it. Move past it. Ignore it. Numb it away.
The result? Not the intended “ridding myself” of the pain, but instead a fair amount of bitterness that the discomfort kept returning…and each time worse than the time before. I have been overcome with feelings of frustration at swallowing the bitter pills of avoidance only to watch it return. And each time without taking a closer look at what was causing it.
Breaking Through
Remember, pain reveals. It points to and exposes. And sometimes it takes a very painful experience or set of experiences to expose a very deep wound or very deeply protected problem. Most often it’s those deepest, hidden issues that keep us from moving forward.
But here is what I found.
What I have found is that I had to experience great pain in order to experience a breakthough. Because sometimes it’s the punch that knocks you out that finally shatters the wall that has been holding you back.
That’s not what I wanted. I don’t think that any of us set out looking for a knock-out punch to land us on our behinds. But sometimes we need to actually feel a pain so deep that we can finally be broken and open enough to see what’s going on deep beneath the surface and deal with it.
God in Brokenness
I have heard it said that in God’s economy, the way up is down. What God is teaching me through my own brokenness it that it is necessary to endure the grave if we are to fully realize the resurrection.
You and I will never experience revival in our lives until we first open up to Him in our brokenness. That is the heart of what we read about in the book of James:
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you (James 4:8–10).
This is not a message that we are usually excited about hearing. Instead of removing pain, we are told to take it on.
I thought my problem was that I was sad and depressed and needed to find my happy place again. But what I am learning is that I had been living for a long time in a place of self-exaltation and I was desperately in need of some humility and a new reliance upon Him.
My heart has been so broken, but it is through this that I have begun to experience a new awakening of my soul.
My brokenness became the shattering of my self-will and the complete surrender of my will to the will of God. My brokenness began the process of undoing the self-reliance I had been clinging to and correcting my posture before God. And as the walls of control came down and I began to be broken over my pride, I met God in a whole new way. It was only then that my strength of faith began to return and the pain began to ease.
Is anyone else walking through a painful season? It is not an easy one. But my prayer is that I can learn to embrace the painful seasons as necessary to break down strongholds in my life. Just as the way up is down, the way to strength is brokenness. So even now, Lord break me even more.
Jewels Chohan 