A Purpose for the Pain?

One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love. - SOPHOCLES, Oedipus at Colonus

 

We’ve all seen it, but we may not have liked it or wanted to accept it. I know I didn’t. It says, “God has a purpose for your pain,” or something like that. 

To my way of thinking, the inference is that God planned for you to be in pain in order to accomplish His purpose. I didn’t like that inference.

That is not to say that pain is a bad thing, necessarily.  It feels bad, but it does have a purpose. 

The old mill served its purpose at one time.

Usually, it’s to let you know something is wrong. Take, for example, the case of the horrific pain of a gall bladder attack, like the one my husband had recently. If you don’t do something about it soon, you are going to be in serious trouble. 

Whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual, pain lets us know that we are alive. It may also mean something has to go. Like the gall bladder. 

But, what if the pain is associated with something we have loved and guarded, like a relationship or a dream we have had? Maybe it’s something we had hoped to do with our life that may now seem impossible. Then, we tend to hold on in spite of the pain. 

We may eventually come to realize that letting go is the only humane choice. Either it dies or we do. 

We have tried everything to keep it alive, but it is time to put it out of its misery. So, we pull the plug at last, knowing deep down inside, only a miracle can save it; only God can breathe life into it. If He doesn’t, it’s for the best. There is no pain in death.

Only then do we begin to understand the real purpose. It was to extricate us from the thing we held on to so tightly He had to pry our grip loose. We thought we would die without it. We didn’t.

He was merciful to allow us to keep it for as long as we did. We needed something to hold on to and He let us hold it. The pain was to let us know we could not keep it any longer.  We were the only thing keeping it alive. Then, like a mother does with an unborn babe, we carried it to its time. The pain came and we delivered. What we carried now lives a different life. The pain served its purpose and is gone.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28 HCSB).

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18 NAS).  This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has revived me (Psalm 119:50 New Heart English Bible).

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever (Revelation 21:4 NLT).
 

Excerpt from While it Is Called Today 

a 30-day photo-devotional

by Dee Marvin Emeigh

In the Details

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, 

and in the flowers and clouds and stars.  — Martin Luther

An innovative architect of the early twentieth century, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is quoted as saying “God dwells in the details.” Much speculation has gone into what he meant, but one modern architect put it this way: “Working out details requires great application – something akin to religious fervor… always worth remembering…when things are getting a little complicated.” 

It does us good to get a different perspective sometimes, especially when things get complicated. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy taking detailed photographs of flowers. We tend to look at them as bright spots in a field of brown or green bringing us a bit of joy, or blankets of beauty on the flowerbeds, but seeing them close up is a very different experience. 

The stamen of a crocus blossom.

For me, isolating the veins in the petals, the pollen on the stamen; the very elements of their existence, fills me with awe for the Creator whose attention to detail makes my perfectionist tendencies look like gross recklessness. 

Just as each detail of the flower’s anatomy (and ours) has a purpose, so each detail of our lives has a purpose as well. Yet, seeing it that way often requires a different perspective, if not a different lens. 

Nevertheless, the God who made the entire universe and attended to every detail of life therein, already knows all the details of our lives and their purpose. He has also already provided a solution to every problem.

There are conditions, of course. Call them details. For example, before the seed even goes into the ground, it must dry out. Once it’s planted, it must have the right elements in the right proportions to produce the green shoot, the flower, and the fruit of the harvest. None of this happens overnight. There is no Jack and the Beanstalk experience when it comes to discovering our purpose. 

It requires following the detailed instructions of the Creator who made us, who orders our steps to accomplish His purpose for our lives. It requires trusting that He is the one working in us, speaking into our spirits, bringing all of the elements together according to His plan. Indeed, it requires believing that He dwells in the details.

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives (Psalm 37:23, New Living Translation).

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life (Ephesians 2:10, Berean Study Bible)

For the universe owes its origin to Him, was created by Him, and has its aim and purpose in Him (Romans 11:36, Weymouth New Testament)

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1, New Heart English Bible)  

Excerpted from While it Is Called Today

a 30-day photo-devotional

By Dee Marvin Emeigh

 © 2018 Livingwell Seed Co Press

When the System is Broken

I walked not in the way of righteousness. … But the Almighty God, who sits in the court of heaven, granted what I did not deserve (Constantine 280-337).

The author of an article I read recently, regarding the current state of journalism and of photojournalism in particular (or the lack thereof), called it “a broken system that doesn’t deserve to survive.”

As time goes on, the old structure lets in more and more light.

The words could apply to many other systems as well and sadly, that includes the church “system.” We live in a world of broken systems. It is a broken world.

Broken systems have some common characteristics. First, they are not functioning as they were meant to function. Second, those who are comfortable with them try to patch them up to keep them working. Even in their lack of real ability to be comfortable, they are comfortable. Third, their very existence hinders their replacement. As long as they are working to some degree, even if ineffectively and even if they have outlived their usefulness, they continue to survive.

There is comfort in the familiar, in the rote, and the self-contained. People are drawn to it. In the church system it is about being comfortable connecting to God. 

But church was never meant to be rote or self-contained. It was never meant to be a system. It was meant to be organic and dynamic. By definition, that makes them unfamiliar and that can sometimes be very uncomfortable. 

No one knows what would have happened if the Emperor Constantine had not “validated” Christianity, allowing Christians to come out into the open and form public places of worship. We do know that what resulted was a somewhat different form of “Christianity;” one that was simmering on a back burner for at least a couple of centuries waiting its time. Let’s call it the church system. 

Whether it was his real motive or not, Constantine’s premise was to unify Christianity. That didn’t work. The system was flawed from the beginning. 

So, does this system deserve to survive? 

The answer, I believe, lies in acknowledging that the church system is broken. While it can be perceived as a life-raft, it is in fact a broken system made up of the pieces of shipwreck. But, it should not stop there. Seeing that the church system is broken, perhaps beyond repair, should cause us to look to the Father who made us to show us what to do with this broken system. In fact, that is our responsibility. 

In spite of its brokenness, the church still attracts those who want to find God. As individuals, we are called to be the church of God individually. So, it is not the system that deserves to survive. It is the people of God. They are the real church. The question then becomes, can the people of God survive without the system? Even more, can they go beyond surviving to thriving and growing as organic and dynamic members of one body? 

That is something only the Father himself can reveal. It is not a matter of opinion or debate. His answer may lead us into a wilderness or into a prison cell. It may even lead us into a crumbling infrastructure on a rescue mission. He is able to take what was meant for evil and turn it into something good (Romans 8:28, Genesis 50:28).

 And it just might be that in the brokenness of the system God may yet shine best. 

“There is a crack in everything – That’s how the light gets in” (Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson).

1 Corinthians 3:16

“Don't you yourselves know that you are God's sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” (Holman Christian Standard Bible).

Ezekiel 37
“²God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.

³ He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Master God, only you know that.”

⁴ He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!’”

^5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, “Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!” – (The Message).

Ephesians 2

²⁰Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. ²¹We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord (New Living Translation).

Excerpt from  

While it Is Called Today -

a 30-day photo-devotional 

© 2018 Dee Marvin Emeigh