Purpose In The Pain

Everybody is going to face seasons of darkness & pain. It's one of the unpleasant & inevitable truths of life & of faith. When we receive that phone call, get that diagnosis, or experience that loss, it's easy for us to begin to question God, His goodness, & His will. After all, since we're His people shouldn't we escape at least some of this junk? The flip side of that question is that perhaps we have escaped some of that pain, but we will likely never realize how He has protected us. We only recognize the times when He allows the pain, & if we're not careful it can throw us into a tailspin.

The truth is that when we go through these seasons of pain & darkness, it's another opportunity to grow in our faith & trust in Christ. It may not be an easy opportunity, & even when we get through it & look back, we won't want to have to endure it again, but there's a good chance we'll see that God taught us something & grown our faith in Him through that trial or pain.

You see we serve a God who is a redeemer. That's not a word we use much anymore & when we do we don't bring out the depth of meaning in it. Our Heavenly Father is a redeemer. In Christ, He takes sinners & turns them into saints. He takes treacherous rebels & adopts them as sons & daughters. He takes death & turns it into life. And as a redeemer, he doesn't just redeem our souls from Hell; He redeems our entire existence. He redeems our pain for our ultimate good & His glory.

When you dig into the famous story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11, you're struck by the fact that Jesus was apparently more than willing to allow something tragic & terrible to come into the life of that family so that on the other side, they might have greater faith in Him. And even though our seasons of pain may not have the happy ending that Lazarus' did, the fact remains that Jesus wants to use it to stretch our faith & trust in Him. All along the way He's asking, "Do you believe me? Do you trust me?" As we stay in step with Him, He may rescue us from the darkness or simply walk with us through to the other side, but one thing is sure, He'll change us in the process. Tim Keller says, "Christ didn't suffer so that you wouldn't suffer, but so that when you suffer, you become more like Him." 

And the truth is these seasons of pain don't just affect us. People are watching how we handle it when things fall apart, especially if we claim to follow Jesus. When Lazarus' family balanced the tension between faith & disappointment, the result wasn't just that their faith grew. Scripture tells us that the people who witnessed the whole thing became believers in Christ. 

"God Wants To Use Our Circumstances 

To Deepen Our Faith & To Ignite Faith In Others."

What if this season of life right now that's got you beaten down or discouraged is an opportunity for you to trust Jesus even more? After all, isn't that when your test in anyone or anything is tested & strengthened? In fact isn't that when faith is actually revealed? What if how you walk through this season that God's allowed into your life isn't just about you or your faith? What if God's purpose in the pain is to redeem it so that you might trust Him more so that someone sees His power in your life, & in turn, they put their faith in Jesus, changing their eternity.