the truth about pain

We must be very careful to not allow pain to interpret truth. Truth is a hierarchy, more superior than yet foundationally below, pain. Truth does not bend, is not swayed. In our deepest moments of pain, it is most tempting to believe pain's definition of what is happening through the fiery trial, especially for the one who's flesh is on fire. But, there is an eternal reality that is higher than our temporary afflictions and it will not be moved, even when we are seemingly being swept away by the salty waves of suffering.

Pain is a teaching tool and only serves to work as such when we discern it honestly, in light of the truth, when held up next to the light of the Word made flesh. Truth is a Man, and there is a comfort that serves as an anchor for the soul in knowing that Jesus is greater than our pain and emotions, our very best ideologies, reasoning and wisdom. If you have ever suffered under an intense trial, you will understand how vital this is when every nerve ending is raw; spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental. If you have not, it is nothing that I can explain to you, you will simply have to face the furnace one day and prayerfully come forth without the traces of smoke upon your life.

Pain naturally causes the human psyche to grasp for understanding, for a logic beyond itself, just as a drowning person grasps for a life preserver. Truth, in its entirety, will preserve and save you while even a half-truth can bring about spiritual death. While our minds are clouded by pain and when we are in our weakest state, the enemy of our soul offers up half-truths as bait, just as he did to Jesus while in his wilderness season and dark night of the soul. We must look to Truth as we navigate through the miry clay.

At some point in our lives, there is allowed a struggle that is God-inspired, with imagery similar to that of a human being wrestling a crocodile in the muddy waters of the swamp. There comes a violent thrashing while muscling ourselves around something that feels so dangerous, so reckless, that we marvel over how it could ever be safe in the first place, ever be attained. I assure you that Jesus is unsafe in the safest way. He allows just enough pain in our lives that we are left leaning, in awe-struck perplexity, with wide-eyed wonder forcing us to resign in worship to a God who spared not his own son.

If we don't come out of this place with a limp, we were somehow able to shortchange the grace that God has made available to us, to perfect us and establish unshakable truths in our spirit, in our lives. If we must boast, let it be in light of the truth that a perfect God intends to be glorified in our weakness, at our weakest moments. He intends to perfect himself in us, through trial, pain and suffering.