As a Christian I have learned that pain in this life is inevitable. Not only that but pain can either be viewed as friend or foe depending on your perspective in life. For you see pain has a divine purpose. And God allows pain for His glory. According to Max Lucado: “Your pain has a purpose. Your problems, struggles, heartaches, and hassles cooperate toward one end-the glory of God.”1
Too often when we experience great pain we wonder where is God. Again Max Lucado offers us insight here: “Does the presence of pain mean the absence of God? I try to help people see that God uses pain, that pain is one of the ways God shapes us into the kind of beings He wants us to be for eternity.”2 I have found that the best way to cope with deep pain is to first, realize that God has a purpose in allowing you to go through that pain, and second, that when we link pain with eternity great comfort can ensue because we take on God’s perspective.
Two more quotes from Max Lucado show us the linkage between pain and eternity: “I don’t know how to answer the problem of deep pain without a deep hope in eternity.”3 And: “Filter your pain through the brevity of this life and the unending beauty of the next.”4 And Scripture confirms our need to think on things eternal and above for we read: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossian 3:1-2).
So often we spend all of our time thinking in the now that we forget that God is just using the now for divine purposes and allowing us to participate in bringing glory to His name through the pain process.
In closing I ask you to meditate on this last quote by Max Lucado. I really think that it will allow you to turn your pain into an ally on your Christian journey through life: “If the purpose of life is just to live this life and then die, it’s hard to answer the purpose of pain question; but if we can help people see from an eternal perspective – that all of this is working together to prepare us for something higher than we’ve ever imagined, more noble than we’ve ever dreamed – then we discover some hope that we can hold on to.”5
1 Max Lucado Quotes About Pain | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
2 Max Lucado Quotes About Pain | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
3 Max Lucado Quotes About Pain | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
4 Max Lucado: Filter your pain through the brevity of this life and the unending beauty of the next. – Berean Insights