Choices in Pain

Everyone at some point experiences pain.  

If we are not currently in pain, we undoubtedly know someone who is.  If we do not personally know someone in pain, we know that someone somewhere is currently in pain.

Pain is such a complex thing and often hard to define.  Pain can be throbbing, stabbing, sharp, dull, squeezing, radiating, and more.

Merriam-Webster gives this definition of pain:

a :  usu. localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also :  a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive actionb :  acute mental or emotional distress or suffering

Regardless of the particular definition we use to define it, we know one thing for sure, pain hurts.

Pain also protects.  The pain we feel as our hand gets too near the stove protects us from further damage.  The pain from an injury keeps us from continuing on, which could cause more damage, and leads us to seek rest and treatment.

Pain can strengthen.  Ask any weight lifter why they suffer through sometimes painful workouts and they will tell you the minute muscle damage increases strength as the muscle repairs itself.  It reminds me of when our son was in Marine Corps basic training we came across a Marine Corps poster which said, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."  

Pain can lead to wisdom.  When we hiked our first section hike of the Appalachian Trail, we  underestimated the trail and over-estimated our abilities to deal with the unexpected. Because of that, and for reasons outside of our control, we experienced some painful situations.  That particular pain caused us to plan more carefully the next time.  The experience also taught us we can do much more than we thought we could.

Pain can be a great motivator.  It motivates us to remove ourselves from whatever is causing the pain, or to remove the source of the pain from ourselves.  It motivates us to do those things which will keep the pain from recurring.

Pain also leads, it leads us to a choice.  We can either concentrate on ourselves, our pain and our situation or we can choose to direct our thoughts toward others.  

So we are back where we started. . .we all either know someone who is hurting or we know that someone somewhere is hurting.

In our pain we can choose to "bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," (Galatians 6:2) by praying for others in pain.  Or as the Apostle James said:

". . .pray one for another, that ye may be healed.  The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."  James 5:16

Praying for others when we find ourselves in pain is not an easy thing to do, yet it follows the pattern the Lord Jesus Christ gave us.  As He was nailed to the cross, He prayed for the Father's forgiveness for others.

Praying for others, instead of focusing on ourselves, gives more purpose to our pain.  Indeed, in our easily distracted world, it may be pain is one of the ways we can become focused on the needs and pains of others.

Broken Lights

It is always sad when the day comes to take down the Christmas tree.  

I love the light and sparkle of the tree, I love the beauty and feeling of celebration it imparts to the house.  But Christmas trees need maintenance and ours has reached that point.  

Several years ago, due to my allergy to trees, we purchased a pre-lit artificial tree.  It was and still is beautiful.  

Because we loved the look of trees we remember as children, we added to the hundreds of tiny white lights, several strands of colored C-7 lights (LEDs, of course, so as not to melt our tree.)

Over the years some of the colored lights had blown out and needed to be replaced.  Some of the white lights too had gone dark.  I used a handy light-repair gun to bring them back to life a few times,  but now they are dark for good.  In an effort to get the tree decorated on time, I added new white lights, but left the malfunctioning ones on the tree.  I simply covered the problem, I didn't resolve it.

Now the time has come to strip the tree of all its lights and restring it.  I confess, I am not looking forward to this project, but I know better than to just wait until the end of the year to do it.  Then I will be ready to get the tree up and won't want to take the time and effort to remove the lights.

It isn't enough to just cover the broken lights, they need to be replaced.  I must remove the ones which came on the tree and wind new ones along the branches.  When finished the tree will be bright and shining again with no traces of the previous brokenness.

The tree reminds me of ourselves before we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.  We are as dark as my Christmas lights.  Sometimes we try to hide that darkness by putting good lights, good deeds, good thoughts along with the dark, but we are still dark.  When we believe on the Lord by faith, He doesn't just cover up our sins, He washes them clean.

"Come now, and let us reason together, 

saith the Lord:  though your sins be as scarlet, 

they shall be as white as snow, 

though they be red like crimson, 

they shall be as wool."  Isaiah 1:18

He not only washes away our sins, but the Bible says that in some marvelous way I don't think I will ever understand, He has removed our sins "as far as the east is from the west," and indeed He says He remembers them no more.

". . . for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more." Jeremiah  31:34.

May we keep in mind here at the beginning of this new year, and indeed, all year through, that our sins are washed away, our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west, because they were laid upon the Lord Jesus.  

"All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."  Isaiah 53:6

A New Beginning

January 1st is traditionally a time for new beginnings, resolutions and hopes for improvement.  In fact, after leaving the gym the other day we remarked how crowded it will likely be in the coming weeks.  Then it will gradually slow down to those who have been working out most of the previous year.

In our Christian lives we may often find ourselves in a place where we appear to have less fervor, less zeal than we did before.  We may find that we have let sin easily beset us or that we have fallen far from "that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

This may lead us to feel as if we must somehow straighten ourselves up before we can re-establish our fellowship with God.  Indeed, we may feel that there is no hope, that we will always be this way, and we will be sorely tempted to just wallow in the mud of disappointment and despair.

There are two truths we must confess and affirm, even if we don't feel as if they are true, if we are to ever live a Christian life of victory.

First of all we must realize we can no more "clean ourselves up" to restore our fellowship with the Lord than we could to procure our salvation.  His is the work of transformation and His alone.  The work of our flesh in trying to make ourselves acceptable to the Lord is "as filthy rags" even when it is the Christian doing so.  The Lord has provided an advocate for us in the form of His Son, who is our perfect and better High Priest.

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.  And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 

Jesus Christ the righteous:" I John 2:1

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for our sins, was shed not just for the sins of our past, but for every sin of every person at any time.  

Secondly, we must realize when we fall it is our Father's desire that we avail ourselves of His forgiveness and return to a life of righteousness.  We so often can hear the shouting of our enemy telling us we should just lie there in our failure, that we do not hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit encouraging us to "Get Up!"  Every time we fall it is an opportunity for a new beginning, a chance to get up and press on.  The Lord doesn't want us to dwell in failure, but to dwell in His abundance grace and mercy, to know His love and the live in His peace.

So if you find yourself in the slough of despond, "Get up!"  If you find yourself en-robed in the guilt of sin, admit your sin to the Lord, cast off the paralyzing guilt and realize He has wrapped you in the glorious righteousness of Christ and know without a doubt that we have a God who delights in mercy.

"Who is a God like unto Thee, 

that pardoneth inquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?  

He retaineth not His anger for ever, 

because He delighteth in mercy."  

Micah 7:18

Conformed and Transformed

I am currently sitting in what used to be our oldest daughter's bedroom.  She bought her own home, and as soon as she signed the papers, we began to formulate an idea and plan for this space in our house.  We both had idea what we wanted the room to look like, feel like and function as.

We began the process of agreeing on a paint color, picking out chairs, a table and other items to go in this room, which will function as a study for us.  Eventually the room will go from a plan and a collection of ideas to an actuality.  The room is being transformed.  It hasn't happened overnight, it has been a gradual work and indeed, it isn't finished yet.

As Christians, we are also a work in progress.  We are being transformed.  The Lord is working every aspect of our lives into His plan and purpose to conform us to the image of Christ.  There is not one single thing that happens in our lives, which the Lord cannot in some way work to our very best.  How powerful He must be!

It is His plan and purpose to conform us into the image of His Son, to renew our mind and for us to "prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Just as our room is being changed for a specific purpose, the Lord has a specific plan and purpose in His transformation of us.  All we need to do is to look around the beauty of the creation in which we live to know that what He will do in and through us will be completely amazing.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 

What shall we then say to these things? 

If God be for us, who can be against us?"  

Romans 8:28,29,31