“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’” (Revelation 21:4 NLT)
Heaven, a home with God forever, is hard to imagine, isn’t it? Every day we’re reminded that life on earth is temporary, but, especially when we’re young, we tend to believe we’re invincible and life on earth will never end. That tends to change dramatically as we age.
Today I changed the filter in our water system, a chore I’ve completed many times, but it took me much longer today because I couldn’t remember how I did it. Water was spewing all over the place and I was begging God to help me figure out what I was doing wrong. He did, but not before I’d made a big mess. Every time I knelt to try to reattach the filter housing I got a charley horse, first in my right leg, then my left. Pain is my near constant companion in this season of my life, but did you notice what that pain caused me to do?
Who did I beg for help? The Lord! He’s my constant companion, literally, and I can’t imagine not being near Him. That’s the joy and cause for my anticipation of being with Him for all eternity. Heaven would hold no appeal to me if Jesus wasn’t going to be there.
Rosaria Butterfield nailed it when she said: “A life outside of Christ is both hard and frightening; a life in Christ has hard edges and dark valleys, but it is purposeful even when painful.” This is a very sensitive topic, so I want to tread lightly, but from my perspective and based on my understanding of what the Bible teaches, God never wastes a problem.
Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” And please understand, Paul is not saying that God causes everything. He doesn’t cause a driver to go 100 mph on a city street and slam into a family of six, killing them all. He doesn’t cause people to become addicts, murderers, or rapists. That’s ludicrous and an insult to a holy God.
So, why does Paul give us that assurance? Perhaps C. S. Lewis says it best: “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (The Problem of Pain) We are so distracted by the busyness of life that we tend to ignore the pain of others, but not when it knocks on our door.
So, the question remains, what is the purpose of my pain? The obvious answer is “to point us to the Lord.” But crying out to the Lord to “fix this” isn’t exactly the purpose. On some levels pain is like the red light that is designed to have us stop at an intersection. We can ignore it, but usually at our peril. Or we can allow it to fulfill its purpose.
Ultimately the purpose of pain isn’t to make us suffer, but to enable us to see and understand that we are finite, frail, and inadequate to deal with pain on our own. It’s designed to point us to Jesus and find strength, healing, help, and adequacy in Him. I realize that some reading this may be mad at God for not healing someone, or not saving them from an accident or illness. And I get it. Every member of my immediate family has preceded me in death, but, gratefully, each one of them had a personal love relationship with the Lord and I will see each of them one day in full health and without pain.
Regardless of where you are in your walk with the Lord or what you’re going through right now, I can assure you based on the Word of God and my more than 60 years of personal experience as a Jesus follower, it’s a lot better to go through pain and death with Jesus than without Him.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 
Very good!
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