Triumph Over Your Pain

"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance." Romans 5:3 (NLT)

by Alexander Copeland

The holidays for many was an especially challenging time of the year. Some people were going through a breakup of an important relationship. Others might have lost someone they loved dearly and found the holidays very painful to endure without them. And then there are some who just felt particularly overwhelmed by the holidays, and couldn’t wait until they were over. Whatever the reason, we are heading towards a reality where there are just as many people that are sad around the holidays as there are individuals that are happy. This is not God’s plan for us.

I personally know of a very kind gentleman that is in recovery from an addiction that caused him to lose many meaningful things in his life. His wife left him, his children are still very angry and unsympathetic, and he has only a very small fraction of what he worked so hard to obtain. He says that when he looks back over his life he can’t understand how he came to the place where he is today. He doesn’t understand why God has allowed everything to transpire as it has, and he says that he feels blocked on every hand. He told me that he wished he could skip the holidays altogether.

Of course I understand and can sympathize with his pain. I also know that as Christians we can never stop asking ourselves, “How do I triumph over my pain?” Why is it so important for us to ask this question? It is important to ask this question of ourselves because the answer will help us to embrace and cultivate more of the character of Christ. For some reason, many people have it in their heads that Jesus Christ was not a happy person. Of course this is the furthest thing from the truth. How can you be the only begotten son of the Living God and not be blissfully happy?

Christ didn’t have to fake the funk about anything. He was true blue—the real deal. He’s our example, and what an extraordinary example he is. Christ is so yummy, so kind, so awesome, so compassionate, so generous, and so loving; his standard is our benchmark for life! In the midst of whatever it is that we’re facing, we can have joy because of all that he accomplished for us. Now the trouble is, a lot of us haven’t gotten to the place where we fully believe this. Yes, we know that he gave his life for our sins. We know that because of him we can have a relationship with God, but for many of us that isn’t extending the kind of joy and happiness that it should. Why is that?

You see, the man that I mentioned earlier didn’t recognize that people, things, and situations don’t really cause our unhappiness; they only trigger our volitional, emotional response of unhappiness. No human being walking upon this earth has enough power to make us feel something that isn’t already in us or isn’t something we ourselves chose to feel in that moment. So our pain is often a buildup of stuff that we’ve harbored away in our hearts because we’ve learned to respond to adversity and obstacles in a toxic way.

Someone might say, “Oh that sounds really good, but change is hard and I don’t know how to go about it.” God knows how difficult it can be. He knows the tribulations that we’ve gone through. There are some adults that have lived most of their childhoods being abused by someone that was supposed to love them. You think, “How can a person have true joy when they’ve had that kind of history?” It’s a tall order for sure, but tall orders are our Lord and Savior’s specialty.

The work that so desperately needs to be done in each of us is work that we cannot do. If we could, I dare say we would have done it long ago. Our hearts are broken, many of us; our souls are wounded and our minds are vexed and distracted with thoughts that are far beneath our privilege as sons and daughters of the Most High. These conditions don’t just suddenly go away because of our new birth reality. Accepting salvation is the point where we begin to confront some of our past wounds; we need to peel off the scab, and let the Lord get in there with some real healing and deliverance.

Some of us do a really good job of pretending because that is what we believe a good Christian does. We can’t let others know how truly miserable we feel. We can’t let anyone see our mess, so we cover it up so that we look the part. We stuff our hurt and pain way down deep, so that we don’t have to see it or deal with it every day. But the truth is that this doesn’t work because we DO have to deal with it. People, situations, and circumstances will mirror the stuff we’ve got going on inside of us.

That’s a whole lot of meat to chew on, but it’s the truth. We live from the inside out, not the outside in. Proverbs 4:23 (KJV) tells us, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” God knows how much the heart effects our lives, and that is why He tells us to saturate them with His Word. He tells us to renew our minds to the Word so that the scriptures can begin to shape and mold our lives, instead of the world’s garbage that we sometimes let in. The love of God can’t be just a surface reality; the Word has to go down deep, and the only way it can do this is if you let it.

Many of us won’t allow the Word to go deep because we’ve become stuck in patterns of behavior that look pious, but they’re empty; there’s no real passion for God in some of the religious things we do, and yet we have an expectation that passion will automatically show up in our relationships and circumstances.

There’s another way to live, and it’s one of knowing and being convinced that God is always up to something good in our lives. Yes, we have pain, and Rom 5 tells us that we can rejoice anyway.

Romans 5:3-5 (NLT)
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

God isn’t expecting us to rejoice over the circumstances of our pain or the cause of it; He wants us to rejoice because we have faith in Him that we’ll overcome it. We can rejoice because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. That’s a love that is beyond understanding and comprehension. It’s so overwhelmingly comforting, so magnificently healing, and so exorbitantly rich that it will fill up our empty spaces. It will deepen our connection to God and cause His goodness to ooze from our every pore. Only the Holy Spirit can give us this kind of love, and if his love hasn’t touched you to the point of igniting your faith and filling your every move with joy, then set your dial to surrender.

Philippians 1:6(NLT) says, “God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Heavenly Father is in control, and His goal is never to defeat us but to develop us, so that we are fully persuaded in His overwhelming love for us all. You may be experiencing pain and hurt today, but if you’ll simply let go and let the spirit do his most perfect work within you, you’ll triumph over your pain and be better than you ever thought possible. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.