I was in a hurry to get my truck fixed, wrenches turning and time burning I knew I needed to finish before my weekend was over. In my rush I slipped on a bolt and my hand was cut. While I wanted to keep on working the pain forced me to go inside and clean the wound, apply Neosporin and bandage it up. If I had not felt the pain of the cut, my brain would have never told me to stop and treat the wound, I would have kept on working; getting grease inside the wound and eventually it could have gotten infected and even caused me to lose my hand, my arm…even my life! I had an uncle that suffered something similar. He had diabetes and his foot got a small cut that led to him losing the foot and then the leg and then both legs and eventually his life.
I have learned that while pain is awful it serves its purpose even when it is my heart that suffers and the pain is emotional. If I went through life never feeling pain I would never know when to make a course correction. Often in my pain I learn more of whom I am, who God is and how I zip through life never slowing down to see what lies in front of my nose.
I have experienced so much this life has to offer and no matter the pleasure or the high I am always left wanting more and never satisfied. I believe this longing deep in my soul was put there by God so that I will seek Him. I believe He put this in all of us. I think we go through life trying to fill it and when the temporary gratifications wear off and the void remains; emptiness is all that is left. I don’t know why but I seem to take this path often and even though I know Christ is what fills the void, the things of this world creep in and it feels good so I forget what truly satisfies me… until something happens that causes me to suffer. In this season of pain, I stop what I am doing and run to the LORD, I read the bible, I fast and I pray and the LORD patches me back up.
I don’t know why I do the things I do but what I do know is pain has its purpose and I am learning to not ask God to make the pain go away but to change me and show me how to not repeat the mistake that led to the wound in the first place. In the end, all that really matters is that we honor God and obey Him.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. -Psalm 139:23-24