God Uses Pain for Good

Isn't it amazing how God uses pain and hurt for good in the sanctification process?  He is like a master surgeon, willing to cut through skin, flesh, and bone to expose the cancer of selfish wickedness we were unaware of which grew within us.  Unlike a surgeon, however, He allows us to remain conscious during the procedure.  As we lie flat on our backs He takes a mirror, shows us the cancer, and asks us if we will admit that such filthiness exists.  He has the power and expertise to easily remove the sin which remains, but He will not remove the hindrance to spiritual health, power, and communion unless we ask and submit to His loving hands.  Sometimes God uses pain to show us how feeble our faith can be.

I have been reading with interest a most useful book called, They Found the Secret by V. Raymond Edman.  The pages contain numerous testimonies of God's faithfulness to love, call, and pursue men and women He worked greatly through.  On the subject of pain, Frances Ridley Havergal understood well the role God intends when people experience physical suffering.  She says on page 66, "...pain is not mystery when looked at in the light of God's holiness, and in the light of Calvary...Pain, as to God's own children, is, truly and really, only blessing in disguise.  It is but His chiseling, one of His graving tools, producing the likeness to Jesus for which we long.  I never yet came across a suffering (real) Christian who could not thank Him for pain."

In another passage, Edman quotes concerning the life of Andrew Murray.  "Then something painful happened to Mr. Murray.  Miss Carmichael records that this is how he met it.  He was quite for a while with his Lord, then he wrote these words for himself:  'First, He brought me here, it is by His will I am in this strait place:  in that fact I will rest.  Next He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child.  Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.  Last, in His good time He can bring me out again - how and when He knows.  Let me say I am here, (1) By God's appointment, (2) In His keeping, (3) Under His training, (4) For His time.'" (pg. 89)

Over Christmas this past year I was stricken with a fever.  Although a minor affliction compared to many, for days I was experienced pain and discomfort.  I was surprised how much of my time on the sickbed I spent praying.  I did not pray only from deliverance from the sickness, but I found myself praying about different people and situations God brought to mind.  I smiled to myself as I thought, "I see now why you allow me to be sick, LORD.  It is a way you arrest me to pray."  I praised God for my condition (though I rejoiced in the eventual healing too, I assure you!) because it was as if God pulled back the veil slightly to see His hand at work - despite my suffering.  Even in those seasons when God's plans are completely obscured from our vision, we can know with all certainty that God is at work in us through trials and pain.  Romans 8:28 teaches us, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

The chapter titled "Fraces Ridley Havergal:  The Overflowing Life" closes with her poem, "Like a River Glorious:"

"Like a river, glorious in God's perfect peace,

Over all victorious in its bright increase;

Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,

Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,

Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,

Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Every joy or tial falleth from above,

Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love.

We may trust Him fully all for us to do;

They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true."

(They Found the Secret, pg. 68)