The Purpose in Your Pain, Don’t Waste It
James 1:2-4 NIV
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever 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.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone go rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis
1. Pain will purify your priorities
Refined — to bring to a fine or pure state; free from impurities.
Job 1:21 NIV
and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
1 Peter 1:6-7 NIV
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
2. Challenge your capacity
Capacity — the ability to receive or to contain
3. Expand your empathy
Psalm 5:1-2 NIV
Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
Psalm 5:1 HCSB
Listen to my words, Lord; consider my sighing.