God has a Reason For Asking Us To Walk Through Pain

Isaiah 54:1-2 -  "Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD.  "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

 

Isaiah brought them the wonderful news of God’s increased blessings.  They had endured the long captivity.  They had learned what God had placed them there to learn. God wanted them to know that as soon as he released them…he was going to bless them and increase their number.

 

A time of sorrow and pain can make one bitter and untrusting.  It can lead you so far away from God that you begin to wonder why you ever loved him in the first place. And satan does not waste your doubt and anger at why God would have allowed such great pain in your life in the first place. He tries to plant it deeper in your soul…so that you become separated from the one thing that can bring you out of your pain.

 

But if you see your pain and sorrow as a time of training…a blessing from God…then you build trust instead of lose it. Your faith grows stronger…so that you begin to see how complete trust in God is all that you really need to be happy. He becomes your focus….and the pain becomes a way to shed more of the sin that keeps you from knowing God’s full power.

 

Job toughed it out…and was blessed 100 fold after his great encounter with pain.  He learned that God was really the only one he could trust.  The Israelites wandered for 40 years before they saw the blessing of Canaan.  They earned that God meant what he said. Jonah spent 3 days in the belly of a whale before he admitted that God was bigger than the racial issues of where he was sent to preach. And Jesus died on a cross ….taking on the sins of all man….before he could sit victorious at the right hand of his father.

 

It reminds me that no matter what happens in my life that I perceive as bad…God has plans to use it to better me…not harm me. God wants to use the things I perceive as bad things to teach me about his perfect love.  For his love can conquer all….just like Isaiah ends this chapter in verse 17…. “no weapon forged against it can stand.”

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that you had a reason for asking me to walk through the pain I have felt in my life. Forgive me for the times that I have allowed satan to trick me into being bitter and hopeless…increasing the depression I felt in my heart.  Help me to grab hold of your hand for as long as it takes to see the light at the end of my pain.  Show me how to focus so strongly on you that I can begin to see the blessings that you have waiting on me when I have finished my training.  Amen.