I Don’t Want to Hurt Anymore

Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.” But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.
Acts 28:3-5 (NIV) 

Pain is inevitable. But just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you have to give the rest of your life to suffering.  

You can’t prevent a viper from fastening itself to you, its fangs attaching to your life and pushing out venom. You can’t prevent these terrible life experiences. But you don’t have to live your life suffering from what you have gone through. You can shake it off.  

Paul gets a revelation, a disclosure. God tells him that he’s going to stand and represent God’s kingdom in front of Caesar. God makes that promise. It’s Paul’s assignment.

So when he gets bitten by a poisonous viper, he shakes the viper off. The viper can’t take him out because he hasn’t testified in front of Caesar yet. Until or unless he stands in front of Caesar and tells him what the Lord told him to say, no bite or painful experience can do more than cause temporary discomfort.

So don’t talk about your pain. Talk about your purpose.  

You might have pain, but you also have an assignment. If you live life destined and determined by the will of God, if you live your life under sovereign providence, then what happens to you has to submit to God’s will for you. What covers you after deep pain is purpose. When purpose is the filter that you use to make sense out of what is attempting to cause you harm, you can instead try to figure out how God is moving and why.