A few years back, I went to work in a small village in my country. When I returned back home to the city where I lived, I started experiencing serious pain in my two legs. The pain was so severe that it made sitting on one position for a long time so uncomfortable for me. I visited the hospital, did a couple of medical test but every test result indicated that nothing was wrong with me. I sought the help of a doctor who prescribed some drugs for me but the pain persisted. Weeks passed and the pain remained. I decided to control my food intake and also started doing some sports exercises every day but the pain remained. What was most scary was that I did not know the source of the pain especially because all my health reports showed that there was nothing wrong with me. At that same moment, I had to travel out of my country for a 5-weeks youth training program in another country. It was not easy travelling with pain but I succeeded to travel. On the second day of the conference, the pain was so bad that I did not know what to do anymore. I was unsure of what could happen to me in a country away from home. At this point I felt deep in my heart that I really had to resort to God. I went to my hotel room and cried out in prayer because during that same season, I also had other troubling issues which made me feel like my life was at a standstill. I knew I really needed help because I could not figure out anything on my own. I cried out to God in prayer. This pain and other life issues made me to seek God and drew me a step closer to God because I knew only God had a solution to what I was going through. On one of those nights, after praying, as I covered my eyes to sleep I had a dream where I was told to read the biblical book of James. As I woke up and opened the first chapter of James I noticed it was talking about joy while persevering in trials.
James 1:2-4 (NLT): “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
Oh wow! James tells us about joy in times of trials. These verses started reshaping my perspective of pain. Nevertheless, I still had the pain in my leg and I just kept struggling to do my daily activities with that situation while praying and believing that God had the answer to my situation. One morning, while the youth training program I was attending was going on, I noticed I had no pain in my leg again. I don’t know when the pain left but it was gone. Well, at that point I just thought that maybe the pain had gone for the moment and it may surely come back again. I was wrong the pain was gone for good and never came back. At that point I began to understand that the way to find gain in pain and overcoming pain is going back to the One- Jesus Christ who has already overcome every pain in the world.
Dear friend, I do not know what pain you are going through. It maybe health, emotional or physical pain etc. There is a place where you can find solutions to your pain. It is in Christ Jesus. He knows your problems. There have been times when I had emotional problems and God placed the right people around me to give me counsel; times when I have been sick and God healed me instantly, other times He used doctors to administer treatment to me; sometimes I was down in finances and he opened doors for me where I could work and earn a salary etc.
In John 16:33, Jesus says; “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” Through these verses, I understand that so far as we are in this world, we would always have trials, sorrows and pain BUT the good news is that there is a way to overcome it. HOW? Through Jesus Christ! He has overcome the world and even pain. Let us go back to Him, believe and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. In Christ Jesus, we can thrive even in pain. THERE IS GAIN IN PAIN WHEN WE RESORT TO JESUS CHRIST WHO HAS OVERCOME ALL TRIALS AND SORROW.
The God we serve is the same forever! Let us remain in him and in times of pain we can affirm like the David in Psalm 31:14-15a (NIV) “But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands.”