I\u2019ve noticed a growing trend in our society marked by an aversion to pain. I suspect this trend is due to the easy availability of drugs that mask pain. It seems as if pain is another malady to be conquered by science, along with cancer and heart disease. But pain is not a disease. We forget that pain is a natural and helpful mechanism meant to inform us when something is wrong. We tend to not listen to our bodies and, thus, not listen to our pain. Pain is a symptom, not a problem. When we mask our pain, we stifle the messages our bodies are trying to give us. We need to learn to listen.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t intend to take on the drug companies or to convince you to not take pain medications. Instead, I want to explore the workings of pain in our lives and what we can learn from it. I believe pain can be our teacher.<\/p>\n
At its most basic level, pain is a warning. It triggers when we touch something hot or when we injure ourselves. We feel pain when something is wrong inside us, such as a stomachache or headache. From the pain messages, we learn what behaviors to avoid, such as not touching the hot stovetop. We also learn new behaviors, such as wearing sunglasses when spending hours in the bright sun. If pain is repetitive, then we need to change our behaviors to mitigate the pain, such as not eating foods that give us heartburn. Listen to the messages your body is giving you and try to learn from them.<\/p>\n
These principles also apply to emotional pain. Can we learn from our pain to change our behaviors so we aren\u2019t inflicting pain on ourselves or allowing others to inflict pain on us? What is your pain telling you? If you\u2019re experiencing emotional pain, you\u2019ll be tempted to mask or medicate it. But sit with it long enough to understand it and to learn what you need to do to remedy it. If you medicate your pain, then you\u2019re only treating the symptom and remain in the dark as to its cause. Seek to understand its cause so you can correct it.<\/p>\n
In my book, Four in the Garden<\/em>, Creator said, \u201cThe soul attains full maturation when transformed by life of which pain is an integral component.\u201d Pain has value if we allow it to transform us. Pain has spiritual purpose. The apostle, Paul, understood this and sought to partake in Christ\u2019s sufferings as a way to know Christ better and to become more like Him. \u201cI want to know Christ\u2014yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.\u201d (Philippians 3:10). I admit this concept is far beyond me, but I recognize that Paul\u2019s attitude toward suffering is rare when compared to the importance placed on minimizing pain these days. This is evident in advertisements that promote weight loss or great abs without exercising. What happened to \u201cno pain, no gain?\u201d<\/p>\n Paul believed that suffering had the power to raise us to a higher spiritual state. \u201cFor our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.\u201d (2 Corinthians 4:17). This power isn\u2019t found in the suffering itself, but in God\u2019s ability to use the suffering to our benefit when we trust Him to do so. God can only transform what we hand over to Him. During my back injury, I believed there was some spiritual purpose in it, although I couldn\u2019t see it at the time. Nevertheless, I trusted God during that dark time and entrusted my body and soul to Him, believing He could use the situation to bring about spiritual growth in me. Had I not done so, I doubt I would have learned or grown as much as I had.<\/p>\n Paul saw benefits to suffering. \u201cNot only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.\u201d (Romans 5:3-4). Paul lists three areas that can develop from suffering: perseverance, character, and hope. Learning to endure pain develops perseverance that helps us stick it out during long or tough challenges in life. Perseverance produces character that is more focused on others than on our own comfort. And character leads to hope that, in this context, means an abiding trust in God during times of trial where reward and gratification are delayed, but still believed in.<\/p>\n If, during our suffering, we focus on our misery and complain, I believe we can sabotage God\u2019s intention to use it to transform us. Even of Jesus, it is said that He was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). If Jesus, our example, needed to suffer to be made perfect, then much more do we need to be perfected through life\u2019s experiences. An attitude of trust is important. Can you entrust your painful circumstances to God so He can use it to deepen your character? Our transformation has paramount importance to God, more than our comfort. Our bodies and circumstances don\u2019t last forever, but our souls do, so God is invested in developing our souls, making them ready for eternity.<\/p>\n I believe we will continue to grow in the next life, but this life is about developing an elasticity and humility that fosters the greatest capacity for future growth. Through life\u2019s experiences, we can develop a spiritual capacity for partaking in God\u2019s abundant and overflowing Life and Spirit. Without the necessary transformation to our souls, we won\u2019t be able to contain the immensity of such abundance and Presence.<\/p>\n One lesson I learned from pain is a deeper acceptance and trust. It\u2019s natural to resist pain and discomfort. I resisted the thought that I would be permanently disabled. But God was saying to me, \u201cWhat if you don\u2019t get better? Will you trust Me anyway?\u201d I wrestled with that question for some time. In the end, the question boiled down to, \u201cIs God trustworthy or not?\u201d I decided He was trustworthy and would be no less able to care for me if I were permanently disabled. What helped me was meeting a lady named Marcy ten years earlier. When I met her, she was still confined to bed because of a back injury five years prior. She radiated joy and gratitude in spite of her disability and had tremendous trust in God.<\/p>\n Another lesson I learned during that time was to live in the present moment. During my injury, I kept dreading the future, seeing it as an unmanageable burden. I also looked back at the many months of immobility and debt, and got depressed about the unproductive time of being confined to bed and not making income. God taught me to focus on Him in the moment and to not dwell on the past or future. He reminded me that He doesn\u2019t inhabit the past or future. Those things are abstract and have no present reality. But God dwells in the present and we can experience Him there. When we focus on the past or future, we sever our active connection to God because we jump into our minds to obsess on past events or future worries.<\/p>\n One surprising benefit I discovered was that focusing on the present moment made my pain more manageable. The thought of an entire day of pain was crushing, but I found I could manage the current moment of pain I was experiencing. And I would manage the next moment of pain, and then the next. I didn\u2019t worry about how I would get through the day or week or month. Instead, I stayed in the moment and managed that moment. This is a great way to tackle life when it feels overwhelming. Also, it keeps us centered on God who inhabits the present moment and makes Himself available to us in that moment.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s society is accustomed to instant gratification. I worry that we are losing the virtues of sacrifice, denial, and delayed gratification. During World War II, when rationing was enacted, the entire country made voluntary sacrifices to support the war effort. The Great Depression and World War II taught my parents how to make sacrifices and to live on less. I see how those instilled values created an incredible generosity in my parents. Pain and suffering can do the same for us. Pain can teach us humility, endurance, willingness to suffer for others, and gratitude for what we have.<\/p>\n James encourages us be grateful for our trials. \u201cConsider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,\u00a0whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.\u201d (James 1:2-4). Our reason for joy is that when we persevere, it produces a complete maturity that Paul defines as \u201cattaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.\u201d (Ephesians 4:13). And that is God\u2019s intention for our transformation, that we be filled with the fullness of God and, thus, bear His image in all its glory.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n Rick Hocker is a game programmer, artist, and author. In 2004, he sustained a back injury that left him bed-ridden in excruciating pain for six months, followed by a long recovery. He faced the challenges of disability, loss of income, and mounting debt. After emerging from this dark time, he discovered that profound growth had occurred. Three years later, he had a dream that inspired him to write his award-winning book, Four in the Garden<\/em>. His goal was to help people have a close relationship with God and to share the insights he gained from the personal transformation that resulted from his back injury. He lives in Martinez, California.<\/p>\n For more articles, visit http:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/articles.html<\/a> I\u2019ve noticed a growing trend in our society marked by an aversion to pain. I suspect this trend is due to the easy availability of drugs that mask pain. It seems as if pain is another malady to be conquered by science, along with cancer and heart disease. But pain is not a disease. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10,26],"tags":[46,55,16],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Hhvw-4C","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":339,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/how-to-engage-your-emotional-pain\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":0},"title":"How to Engage your Emotional Pain","date":"April 20, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"What is your response to emotional pain? Do you shove it down or pretend it isn\u2019t there or just hope it goes away on its own? We haven\u2019t been taught how to deal with it. And it\u2019s scary to face it head on, so we resort to resisting it, denying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":272,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/when-god-feels-far-away\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":1},"title":"When God Feels Far Away","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my book, Four in the Garden, the protagonist, Cherished, loses his connection to Creator. Because of this loss, Cherished feels as though Creator has abandoned him. In the story, I had neglected to show that Creator stayed close. I recently revised my book and added this missing scene. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trust"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/engaging-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":2},"title":"Engaging God","date":"November 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"How do we come to know God? Do we grasp God by reading books? Or by listening to others tell us who God is? Reading a book about someone isn't as instructive as interacting with that person firsthand. Someone can read all the books written about God, but never experience\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":322,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/god-is-beyond-comprehension\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":3},"title":"God is Beyond Comprehension","date":"March 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"We often think of God in human terms. Since God has no equal, we fall back on describing God in relation to ourselves, which serves neither Him nor us. Yet, the eternal, invisible God is not human in any sense. He is beyond time and matter, and unconstrained by the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God's Greatness"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/accepting-all-outcomes\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":4},"title":"Accepting All Outcomes","date":"May 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Life rarely turns out the way we prefer. Someone hurts us. We get sick. We suffer loss. If we believe in God, we turn to God for help. We pray for reconciliation, for healing, for provision. Sometimes, our requests aren't granted, even when our requests are legitimate and sincere. One\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/the-joy-of-impermanence\/","url_meta":{"origin":286,"position":5},"title":"The Joy of Impermanence","date":"May 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, I attended a play at the local Junior College. The play had a lot of set changes. One of the sets was a tall, red cabin with a high porch and steps. The lights went out and the stagehands rolled the cabin off the stage to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}God\u2019s Intention<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Benefits of Pain<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Character and Maturity<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nWebsite: http:\/\/www.rickhocker.com<\/a>
\n<\/u>Email: mail@rickhocker.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"