As Mother’s Day approaches, I can’t help but think about what it took for me to become a mother. There was discomfort, morning sickness, and finally labor. And they don’t call it labor for nothing! It’s hard work to bring a new life into the world.
Childbirth isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s painful. But each time, the pain was washed away by the joy of holding my sweet baby. You see, labor is pain with a purpose. There is a goal, even though in the midst of labor you have no idea how much longer it will last, how much more intense it will be, and how much more you can bear. On the other side of the pain, there is joy.
All of us will encounter painful points in our lives, even though we do our best to avoid them. We can respond by attempting to anesthetize our pain through alcohol, drugs, sex, success, relationships. When the numbness of those epidurals wears off, the pain remains. This is because God tells us that sometimes He allows painful circumstances in our lives for a purpose.
Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. Deuteronomy 8:2
At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or I might command locusts to devour your crops, or I might send plagues among you. Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 8:13-14
God led the Israelites through the wilderness in order to develop and prove their character. He told Solomon that He would use hardship to cause His people to turn from their wicked ways and turn to Him. The point wasn’t for them to suffer. The point was to draw them to Him.
There is always purpose to the painful providences of God. How can we distinguish between pain that is part of God’s pruning process, and pain that is the result of living in a world under the curse of sin? Look at the fruit. Does your pain have a purpose? What will it produce? If it does its work, what result will you see?
The things that are of God always produce the things of God. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Just as my labor during childbirth brought new life into the world, the work of God brings life. He is the One who makes dead things alive. He is the Creator and sustainer of life. He is Life itself.
Jesus was not immune to pain. As a matter of fact, His suffering is what gives Him such compassion for our suffering. He is not just sympathetic. He is empathetic – He knows our weakness because He has felt it Himself.
The Messiah was “beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person” (Isaiah 52:14). In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ “was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). And His final words from the Cross are an anguished cry – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
Jesus suffered. But Jesus’ suffering was pain with a purpose. By it, Jesus secured our salvation, peace, and freedom. “It was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and fill him with grief… When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of what he has experienced, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins” (Isaiah 53:10-11, emphasis added).
I don’t know the purpose of your painful circumstance. But I know that if it is of God, it will produce the things of God in your life. It will accomplish the work of God. Right now, it might seem unfair, pointless even. But when God has finished His work, you will be satisfied.