WHAT A PAIN!

Got a new pain in my lower back this week. Don't know just where it came from, but it has overtaken with vengeance and hangs on as if it had every right to disrupt both my waking and my sleeping.  Well--I am at that age. Things are going to start paining me here and there. Soon my blessed years of great good health will be but a fuzzy memory, if I retain the memory at all. My father always said getting old wasn't for sissies. Guess I'm about to find that out.

So, I ease into my chair or toss in my bed trying to find a comfortable spot and wonder, what's the purpose of pain as we age? How does it all fit into God's great and glorious plan to remake us in the image of Jesus--which He promised to accomplish within the lifetime of every believer. Sure, I know what preachers and teachers say about suffering: its various purposes run the gamut from growing our dependence on Almighty God for strength to persevere, all the way to providing an opportunity to showcase our faith. Others are always watching. When they see that we won't complain and curse God in any situation, it makes them wonder about their own need for God.  Sometimes, God must send suffering as punishment for sin too.

To distract myself from dwelling on my pain, I'm looking to Job--arguably the most notorious pain-and-suffering expert since time began. At the beginning of Job, he feared God and shunned evil, being blameless and upright. Nevertheless, toward the end of the first chapter, disaster engulfs him. What does he do? He falls to the ground in worship of God and says, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Job 1: 21. Then he doesn't charge God with doing wrong. Satan amps up the suffering. In Chapter 2, Job asks, "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" Job 2: 10. Still he refuses to sin. HIs suffering keeps getting worse. We hear the key to his attitude in 10: 8 and 9, "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?" Job knows that God's intent is always good. "You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit." 10: 12. But how about this verse? "Then I would still have this consolation--my joy in unrelenting pain--that I had not denied the words of the Holy One." 6:10.

Job trusts God. He knows God is in control. But "my joy in unrelenting pain?" Joy? I don't get that part. In his unrelenting pain, Job has joy. Job was committed to God, no matter what happened. But his commitment went beyond that. Job was also committed to choosing joy as he obeyed God. Both his joy and his faith had content. Not joy by itself but joy in the Lord. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Neh. 8:10.  Joy in the Lord creates the capacity for endurance. It brings refuge. Joy in the Lord allows continual unbroken connection to God. Living cocooned in this kind of joy, thanking God for whatever He brings each moment, praising and glorifying Him for never leaving us or forsaking us in each situation, good or bad--that propels us through the pain like the little engine that could. Step by step, our weak hand in His strong one, sometimes leaning on Him and stumbling along, sometimes striding with confidence in His leading, we constantly discover anew that He is able--always.  Keep your eyes on Jesus is not a meaningless song or platitude. Whatever suffering tumbles into our lives, we can conquer with joy in the Lord. Even when our pain is unrelenting, we can be joyful. We can find joy IN THE MIDST of our unrelenting pain because it points us to God in a way nothing else can and because we will always find that He will never leave us to suffer alone. 


Posted by Catherine Leggitt at 8/15/2010 11:12 AM
Categories: RETIREMENT LIVING
Tags: Job
 

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