Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli.
The International Association for the Study of Pain’s widely used definition defines pain as, “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential damage.”
We have all dealt with pain in our lives. Whether it is physical pain, mental anguish, emotional hurts, or even spiritual pains. Maybe that pain is from sickness. Maybe you are tired of everything crazy going on around us. Maybe, right now you are feeling spiritually empty.
No matter what that may look like for you right now, the truth is that pain is very real and it is something we all have to deal with in our lives.
Recently, I was lying in bed trying to sleep, but the sleep wouldn’t come. Maybe it was the coffee that I had too late in the day, maybe it was the thoughts of life filling my head. Regardless, I was laying there, my brain going 100 MPH, thinking about my body that was sore, thinking about my wife’s back that she tweaked, thinking about our poor little guy’s sickness and all the sad situations surrounding his life. Thinking about people who are sad and hurting.
As I lay there praying for all these situations, God brought to my mind the Apostle Paul. Paul faced many hardships, sufferings, and pains—yet he declared:
“God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Corinthians 1:3b-5)
No matter what you are facing today, no matter what pain or fear is at your door, Christ is bigger than anything you could ever possibly encounter. While that does not make the pain disappear, it does offer hope and comfort that enables us to endure. In fact, Christ tells us to bring it all to Him.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)
When the burdens of this life come, we have a Savior that is willing to come alongside us and share in the shouldering of those burdens. He gives us strength and comfort, and peace and rest.
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
(Psalm 91:1)
As I laid in my bed that night giving my pain to God, my soul was refreshed, and His peace overwhelmed me. Feeling His love and peace, I drifted off to sleep. Prayer is powerful because it works, and Christ has made it available and easy for all. Come and rest in the shadow of God. Go to God in prayer, cry out to Him, plead with Him, and lay your burdens at His feet.
In His love,
Jason
Hospitality & Family Ministries Director