Learning to live with pain

There was a time when my wife, Kathy, lived with almost non-stop migraines. At the time it seemed so commonplace to her that I had to ask if she was in pain.  She didn’t always show it on her face. On the other hand, I am almost perpetually pain free. So when I get a little headache, everyone in the family knows about it. My guess is that continuous pain tends to raise the threshold of bearable discomfort. But I marvel at two facts: how common it was for the early church, and how much they accomplished in spite of it (or maybe because of it).  It doesn’t take a prophet to predict that if the church is to be successful at penetrating the dominant pagan strongholds of our day it had better become accustomed to living with pain. We must cast aside the unrealistic view that real religion should always be convenient and non-threatening. The Christian point of view is rapidly being banished to the margins of public debate. While tolerance is the buzzword of the day it appears that its application is for everyone except Bible-believing Christians. I am not looking for sympathy here. I am only stating what the new Testament everywhere warns. We have come through and are now beyond the period in our country where Christian influence was tolerated and even respected. Now the Beast is baring his demonic fangs and growling “No more!” If all we want to do is talk to ourselves and encourage our fellow believers then we’ll be left pretty much alone. But to content ourselves with past gains and refuse to compete in the marketplace of ideas is to turn traitor. When things were coming loose at the seams and the Apostle Paul was being abused and kicked out of the local synagogues the Lord appeared to him in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid: keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  We would all do well to listen to those words. If we expect our people to reach non-Christians, it will not come without pain. So get used to it and praise God in the midst of it, for it is an indicator that we are moving in the right direction.


 

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