I'm sure there's threads already on "purpose in pain" so sorry if this is a repeat
the only time I'm not in pain is when sleeping
I'm really tired of it
it feels like God hates me to give me all this pain everyday-for years now
don't see the purpose in it at all
why can't I for once wake up & be normal
I've had chronic pain for over ten years now. The bottom three discs in my back are shot. Pain, sleepless nights, hobbling around with a cane, unable to sit down, and so on. Sometimes it's better, sometimes worse. But every day has pain in it. Normal work is far more exhausting because I do it while I'm hurting; and making plans with friends and family is always a gamble because putting on my shoes or standing up too quickly will put me on the floor, unable to function, for days at a time. I have to wrestle each day with fear and a profoundly limited life.
But things could be worse. Much worse. While I suffer, I do so in the midst of plenty, and comfort, and safety. I have the great blessing of a wonderful wife. Most of all, I walk through each day with God, my Maker, who knows my troubles intimately and loves me in the midst of them, strengthening me, teaching me, and preparing me for the eternity with Him that is to come.
Without God, pain is largely meaningless. It's just a biological mechanism that tells us something is wrong and damaging to us and we should act to stop it.
Pain has the effect of narrowing our focus, of making us myopic, able only to see ourselves and our pain. Without God's mitigating influence, pain can shrink one's world into a tiny, crushing prison of misery. And without Him, that prison is purely accidental, serving no purpose, really; it just hurts and that's all.
With God, though, pain has an eternal purpose, a purpose that transcends the here-and-now, extending forever into the hereafter. Pain, like everything else in life, God would use to make us more like Christ - if we'll let Him. (
Romans 8:29) Every aspect of our lives, good and bad, are potential opportunities to be transformed by God and used by Him as His hands and heart to a lost and dying world.
I've been laid up in bed with a flare-up and God has still used me and taught me. I've been able to counsel folks from my bed, even discipling a fellow - sort of - by phone over the course of several weeks. It actually made me laugh to think that, despite being on a bed of suffering, God would use me to bless and exhort others. But this went on, of course, in tandem with my own learning. My bed of pain was a training ground in trusting God, depending upon Him, waiting patiently on Him, pondering His truth and praying. Oh, there were some "I'm so tired. I feel so alone," moments but God never let me stay in the "Slough of Despond," reminding me often and tenderly that even at 3 am, groaning in pain and exhaustion, I could yield to Him and fix my mind upon Him. And doing so was always better than fixating on my pain and misery and being engulfed by it.
Though we often forget about the eternity to come, God always has it in mind as He moves us through our short time on this globe. He's working in us primarily for the forever that awaits us all, not for right now, that always seems so urgent and important. We'll look back, I think, from our vantage point in eternity and wonder at the way we thought of the fraction of an eye-blink of time we spent on earth, stressing about it and clamoring for it all to be easy and comfortable, investing in earthly things like there was no eternity to come. If we'll adopt God's eternal view, though, the inevitable trouble that assails us all, the pain and trials that are an unavoidable part of living in a sin-cursed world, are put in their proper perspective, shrinking and receding, as they should, before the prospect of the imminent, endless, glorious life for which we were made.
Matthew 6:19-21
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:33
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Colossians 3:1-4
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
1 Corinthians 15:42-49
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Philippians 3:20-21
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.