What
is the purpose of pain? How God uses suffering to shape our Character
INTRODUCTION
Pain is one of the universal experience in
a human life. There is no one who can escape the pain. We all experience
different types of pain. Pain can be caused by the loss, failure, betrayal,
sickness, financial problems, disappointment or internal personal problems and
many others. Suffering causes us to question ourselves; If God is good, why did
He allow this? When we experience the pain we feel like our lives are falling
apart that, we have reached our end. We even questions God’s existence and
start to have second doubts. The Bible does not ignore these questions.
Instead, it answer them in a deep and honest way. The Bible shows that
suffering is not the proof that God has left our side. It does not mean that
God is pushing us away.
According to the Bible, Pain helps us to
deepen our faith and get close to God. It is a way to guide the believers
towards their spiritual growth, allowing them to experience God’s comfort and
love in tough time. Pain reminds us our need for Christ that he is always there
for those who are suffering. When we are in pain, it does not mean that it is
over, that God has stopped listening. Sometimes it might be the beginning of
our purpose. The pain has the purpose of pulling us closer to God. Look at your
hard times, you can clearly see how God used it to refine your faith and
prepare you for something big.
During the pain, that is when God reveals
his power in human weakness.
1. How Suffering can our
contribute to spiritual growth?
Paul explains that:
We have to give
glory to God in our sufferings because suffering prepares us for hope,
perseverance and character growth. Paul saw the purpose of his suffering as
manifesting and acknowledging the power of resurrection of his savior. Paul
sees suffering as temporary light that produced eternal glory.
Key aspects of Paul’s suffering indicates:
A progressive process: suffering produces endurance, which produces character and character
produces hope. This shows that suffering is walking through a process to
strengthen our hope and build the strong character.
Refining Faith: As we know Gold to become gold, it have to go through fire so it
become something valuable. That is how it is for us when we are suffering. We
pass through this tough phase to refine our faith, to make our faith stronger.
Identification with
Christ: Suffering enables believers to connect with
Jesus Christ, by acknowledging his death on the cross and create a deep
relationship with him.
Eternal perspective: Paul shows as that the pain we are having now is nothing compared
to the joy we are going to experience in the future. This teaches that pain is
temporary and the eternal glory is forever.
Divine Purpose: God uses all the things, including pain and suffering to perform
good miracles to those who believes him and stick to his purpose. Pain prepares
us to receive God’s blessings.
Pain creates
endurance. Endurance builds maturity and maturity produces unshakable hope.
This is not forcing positivity or creating false hope. Paul is not trying to
tell us that, suffering feels good. He is saying that suffering can produce
something good. Just as how gold is produced from fire, that is how faith grows
under pressure. Without trials or challenges, our patience remain undeveloped.
Without pain, our faith would remain shallow.
2. How Trials Tests Refines our Faith
AS James
described, believers are told to consider trial tests as pure joy because the
testing of faith produces perseverance. James explains the idea of suffering as
refinement not destruction. James describes trials, as obstacles not be avoided
but a purpose of testing our faith, to helps us grow in state of spiritual
maturity.
According to
James 1:2-4, this refining process follows this specific progress
1.
The view “See it as joy”: James teaches
to consider trials as pure joy. This does not mean we have to enjoy the pain,
but rather choosing God’s way that recognizes the trial as a potential to
produce something valuable.
2.
The process “Testing produces perseverance”: This is similar to the process of purifying the gold. This is
symbolized as a process of strengthening our faith. Just as heat brings
impurities to the surface of a metal, this shows how our faith is made strong
during the suffering periods. The testing produces perseverance, which makes us
endure all the storms we are facing.
3. The goal “Maturity and
completeness”: James shows us that perseverance
must be allowed to finish its work. The goal for this is to refine believer’s
faith to became mature and complete to lack anything. When we say spiritual
maturity, we means developing our character to reflect to Jesus Christ. The
refining process aim to remove pride and doubt in our lives.
4. The tool “Divine Wisdom”: James encourages us to ask for God’s wisdom. This wisdom allows
believers to see that, this trial is from heaven’s will and understand that,
God is using the hard time for our growth.
In some ways
suffering often reveals, hidden fears, false dependencies, weak foundations and
unhealthy pride. Pain can exposes what comfort hides. This is why pain leads to
spiritual maturity and pull us close to God.
3. How God’s Strengths is Revealed in Weakness
One of the powerful teaching about pain appears
in the Corinthians.
Paul tries to explain a thorn in the flesh,
something painful and long lasting. Paul prayed three times for it to be
removed but God did not remove it. Instead, God answered by telling him that
His grace is insufficient for him and that God’s power is made strong and
perfect in weakness. This came to challenge the modern thinking, We most of the
time see weakness as a failure but God sees weakness as an opportunity to pass
on his promises. Saying that the power of God is made perfect in weakness does
not mean God becomes stronger; it means his powers are fully expressed. Human
weakness provides God’s time to shine and reveal what he can do. When we are
out of answers for our problems that is when God takes up and show us that He
is capable of everything. When our power reach to their limits, that is when
God’s power starts, that is when we witness the goodness of the Lord. As long
as we rely on our own talents and ability to solve our problems, we block God’s
power and his blessings. Paul emphasizes that in weakness, we witness the power
of God because his weakness became the doorway that invites him to the power of
Jesus Christ. Weakness acts as pride to prevent pride. By expressing ourselves
to God in our weakness, we depend on God, put everything in his hand, and let
him control. God opposes the proud and offers grace to be humble. Here we can
understand that weakness leads to humility that attracts the grace to be
humble. We see that in the Bible that God uses the weak as a vessel to reveal
his greatness. God reduced Gideon’s army from 32, 0000 to 300 men and yet
Gideon saw victory, which shows God’s ways are different from our ways. Moses
had a problem of having adequate speech, yet God used him to stand before
Pharaoh. We even see this with Jesus, Jesus was crucified and he died but on
the third day, he rose from the dead showing victory over sin and death.
When everything seem to be fine and well
going, it is very easy to rely on ourselves. However, when Human’s power runs
out, God’s power shows up. Self-sufficiency creates comfort but Pain leads to
dependency on God.
4.
How the Bible explains the purpose of Pain
In the Bible, we see many believers whose
suffering shaped their character.
Joseph was sold by his brothers before he became a leader
in Egypt. Job endured all the suffering he was dealing with, at the point he
was left with nothing and yet he received the revelation of God. Even Jesus the
son of God suffered on the cross, he was betrayed and crucified, however that
crucifixion turned into redemption. We understand that Suffering in the Bible means
preparation. Sometimes hard times helps us in preparation of the blessings.
Here
are Biblical purposes of pain:
§ Refining faith and
character: As we have seen, trials prepare us for
perseverance. The Bible shows us in the time of pain, is the time to reshape
our faith and strengthen our character by remaining humble, which turns us into
our best version of ourselves as believers.
§ Growing and correction: Pain can be demonstrated as divine, a divine to direct us when we
are going in a wrong way and directs us back to the right direction. God uses
pain to make us grow spiritually.
§ Relying on God: At our time of weakness, we understand that God’s power is above
everything. We came to know that nothing is impossible in front of God and this
creates the dependency on God.
§ Comforting others: Experiencing pain allow believers to show their empathy and comfort
those who are in pain and this expands God’s love on people.
§ Redemptive purpose: Pain can also be used to save us. Just like Jesus experienced pain
on the cross to save us from the sin.
§ Sign of hope: In the Bible, pain is described as a sign of hope, when we pain, we
get hope that God is controlling the situation and this makes our faith grow
strong.
Sometimes what we see as
pain, God see it as redemption.
5. What pain contribute to
Believers life
When we
surrender everything to God, our suffering can turn into:
ü Deeper compassion to
others: Pain allows us to develop empathy to others
who are suffering. Through pain, we are able to recognize others pain and reach
to them and help them.
ü Humility: Instead of leading to pride, Pain and suffering teaches us to
remain humble and understand how to allow God take control of the situation and
this contributes to spiritual growth.
ü Spiritual Resilience: Suffering teaches us to remain calm and silent even though we are
going through a hard time. It makes us understand that everything that is
happening have a purpose.
ü Eternal perspective: Suffering makes us understand that the pain is not going to last
forever but God’s eternal love and compassion for us is.
ü Intimacy with God: In suffering, we understand God’s love and we create a strong bond
with him by relying on him.
Many believers
testify that their greatest encounter with God occurred in the season of
weakness and desperation not in the season of success.
6. What
Can we learn from Pain and Suffering?
What we have to understand is that,
suffering does not mean God is punishing us. Suffering often prepares us to
receive God’s blessings. God does not disappear when we are experiencing pain.
God is always there waiting for us to give him access to our lives to change
those that seem impossible to change. We have all right to seek help whether
counselling or medical care, when we are facing pain. We have to understand
that seeking help is not lack of faith or the way of figuring out our own
shortcut. Another thing is that, we are allowed to grieve in hard times; the
bible does not permit us from grieving when we are suffering. The Bible does
not command us to act, as pain does not hurt. It only becomes a problem when we
lose our character in our sufferings.
CONCLUSION
What we need to understand is that, pain is
not the end of the story. Suffering is real, it confuses us and it exhausts us.
But the scripture reveals this truth that, Pain is never wasted in God’s hands.
In our suffering that is when we witness the God’s hand, our character forms
and we grow spiritually. What we feel like breaking, in the end we understand
that it God was building something. What we feel like loss, In the end, it
turns to be preparation. God does not give us pain or suffering just to torment
us, God often uses suffering to prepare us from the big blessings and prevent
us from being too proud. What we see as pain and suffering, God sees it as an
opportunity to perform his miracles. We often see God’s hand during our hard
times; this shows hoe God is powerful. In addition, what seems as weakness,
that is where God’s strength becomes powerful.
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