Pain's Purpose
January 26th, 2010
Today’s article is by Serena Woods.
“This sickness is not fatal. It will become an occasion to show God’s glory by glorifying God’s Son.” -John 11:4
I think the church has committed the crime of ‘bait and switch.’ We’re told that our lives will be easier, happier and more profitable if we live for God.
When things go wrong or get tough, they tell you it’s because something is wrong with your ‘walk.’ You’re not doing something right. You spend all your time trying to get the perfect ratio of prayer, devotions, giving, doing, thinking… Only, you still end up on the short end of the stick. Your loved one still died even though you prayed your best for their healing. You can’t control your addictions even though you’ve begged God to deliver you. You can’t grow a child in your belly even though you’ve done everything right.
It’s easier to have a rulebook in front of you so that you can follow the guideline and get the reward. It feels more secure to know that if you do ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’, then everything will work. We know that God is not a faulty product so we turn our attention to ourselves when things don’t work out. We think of ourselves as gas tanks, banks, or electronics. We need to ‘put gas in our tank’, make a deposit in our ‘bank’, refresh our ‘batteries’ or get ‘plugged back in.’
It’s a never-ending cycle of examining spans of time where it was good and trying to recreate our formulas to make it good again.
In all of the time you’ve had your head down, studying yourself, where is God? In all of this stubborn ’self-control’ and ‘perseverance’ how is it possible to let your ’self’ go? I’m not saying that self-control and perseverance are bad, I’m saying that when they become your focus, then your focus is not on God. It would be better to be an absolute mess who relies on grace than a squeak-free, surge-protected, name-brand, self-sufficient appliance that relies on strength and ability. In the effort to ’save your life’ so that you don’t lose it, you’re losing everything. It’s only when you lose your life that you save it.
“…whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” -Luke 9:24 ESV
So far, in my own journey, I’ve come to believe that giving up is the best course of action…
Continued tomorrow…
You can find Serena blogging at Grace is For Sinners, a place where you can go to remember the truth of the Gospel when it’s hardest to feel worthy of it. Serena is also a Relevant speaker.
I could talk some more about this topic for hours! Such a good post!
This makes me think of people who tell someone who is suffering “maybe God is just trying to teach you something and make you grow.” Really? So, you spend even more time suffering because you are beating yourself up trying to figure out what you aren’t doing so well so God will stop “making you suffer” and show Him you learned your lesson!
When are we going to learn that God is crazy in LOVE with us and just wants us to want and depend on Him! It is so freeing when we can get to a place where we realize our complete need for the Cross and stop trying to fix ourselves.
Sarah A´s last blog post … Rubbing Salt into the Wound…
A beautiful encouraging and uplifting post! Thanks!!! I needed that!
Beautiful!! I have to echo the comment from Sarah. My husband is terminally ill, and I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve gotten a scan back that showed more cancer and my reaction has been “God, what are you trying to teach me that I keep missing? What am I doing wrong?”. I have learned, that maybe I should start praying for peace with God’s will – whatever that may be for my husband. I still pray for healing, but I also pray that if God chooses to bring my husband home to Heaven, that I’d be okay with it…and ya know what? I am.
Jess´s last blog post … The need to breathe…
Hi, Sarahmae, your blog is so pretty. I really was blessed to read your abortion story, love it that you all are putting yourselves out there to help others.
I saw you are over at Open Sky, I’m over there too & have just opened a shop. Would love to know what you are doing. Did your shop open yet?? If you get a minute, please drop me an email: rhoda12@bellsouth
Would love to chat about it. I know a couple other bloggers over there too.
[...] I’m over at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee talking about ‘Pain’s Purpose’. There are many ways we respond to pain and many [...]
Thanks for posting your thoughts!
I have come to believe that God allows things to happen, not so we can have an easy life, but so that He can use us. We just have to decide if it’s ‘ease’ or ‘use’ that we want.
Life is an effective sieve. Pain is life’s race car.
Serena Woods´s last blog post … what are you saying?
Wow, Jess, what a testimony of trusting God in something so difficult and impossible to understand. Your faith is inspiring.
Personally, I have seen how God has loved me through allowing me to exprience the pain of my own sin and fallen decision making. I came to faith through an addiction and I have never been so grateful for anything in my life. God has used that painful experience in my life to glorify himself and God has a beautiful testimony in what HE did in little ol’ me.
Thanks for the post, SarahMae. I really like your blog.
Wonderful post, can’t wait to read the rest!
For me,Iv just resolved to the fact that no matter what I do I can’t be anything but a sinner and Jesus is the only way to be at peace with God’s will and accept our lives, good or what we perceive as bad.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”
That purpose though is something we may not understand.
On another note, the idea that we can do some type of formula, A+B+C=Happiness and an easy life is what Religion teaches people. Jesus teaches us that its only through Grace and his everlasting love that we will get to go to Heaven and live in His kingdom, and well whatever happens here on earth was never promised to be easy or pleasant. Why would we expect God to give us a better life then his Son? Being content in all of life, good or bad, is one of the hardest pills to swallow.
Tina´s last blog post … Im Back!!
So true, Serena. The idea of ‘giving up’ and ‘letting go’ is so hard for the religious because of their self-righteousness. Been there done that. But letting go is exactly how we walk in faith. We rest in Him and rely upon His strength, not our own. Trying to hold onto ‘good works’ in fear of falling is not faith.
Sisterlisa´s last blog post … Expressing Love
I am blown away. Just blown away. Serena, I hope you don’t get tired of seeing my name so often in the comment sections of graceisforsinners because WOW I am blown away and speechless, but want you to know it, so I attempt to put thoughts to words every time. I absolutely am so inspired and smile as I read this. It’s as if I have just been hit by such pure honest truth and I am sitting on the ground recovering from it, a sense of relief that it’s all right to just focus on Christ. Simple. That simple.
Hi Sara,
This made me think of a paper that a local pastor wrote. You can read it here, it’s quite long but worth the read!
http://www.kgfchurch.com/images/stories/God_and_Natural_Evil_-_Penninga.pdf
In this paper he said something that really woke me up:
“Listen to what you’re saying, ‘better for us’. We tend to define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ according to one criteria – how it affects ‘us’. If something makes us feel bad or causes us discomfort, we assume it is ‘bad’. Likewise, if something pleases us or brings us happiness, we assume it is ‘good’. But that is not really an adequate basis to make that judgment. So often we want to reduce God to the level of performing for us what pleases us and makes us happy. At the very best, this is a selfish view of God. At worst, it is idolatrous. It assumes that we can, or should, control God and his actions in the world.”
Candace´s last blog post … The Love Dare – Love Brings Unity
I can’t wait to read part 2 tomorrow!! You have my attention – my heart is listening!
Courtney
http://www.womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com
Courtney (Women Living Well)´s last blog post … Tasty Tuesday: How To Make a Candy Land Cake
So good. So terribly TRUE of our limited scope and imagination. How can PAIN bring anything beautiful? How can scars showcase the glory of God? And what shame we embrace when things aren’t “right” in our lives.
CANNOT wait to read more…
Debbie´s last blog post … Am I Singing Off Key?
Wow, this stopped me in my tracks today.
“It would be better to be an absolute mess who relies on grace than a squeak-free, surge-protected, name-brand, self-sufficient appliance that relies on strength and ability.”
Thank you so much for the awesome post, looking forward to part II.
Erin @ Rare & Beautiful Treasures