2 Corinthians 12:7-9
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
1 Peter 4:19
So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
When I talked about drawing back previously, I mentioned that some events just make it hard to see God. Perhaps it was the death of a relative or a moment of failure in a career when that promotion seemed a sure thing. Maybe it was a time when the bills came in and the money wasn’t in the bank to pay them, or maybe it was an injury, a moment of real pain, that threw everything into doubt. Just like everyone else, I’ve known loss, and I’ve felt lost because of it. I’ve felt my share of pain where I’ve “pleaded with the Lord to take it away.” As I said last time, there’s no shame in admitting it.
We’ve all experienced bruises and broken bones, scrapes and scratches—real and metaphorical—from childhood onward. These are the pains that have weighed us down. We’ve all been pushed down, and we’ve all struggled to get back up.
With the Olympic Games in Rio upon us, I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of overcoming pain and how athletes go through that process to reach their goals. Any of you who know me know I’m a big sports fan. Sports and exercise are part of my release, part of how I motivate myself to conquer the problems I have in my life. I know many of you are the same. We love the moments of triumph, the last second catch that wins the game, the home-run in the bottom of the ninth, the shot at the buzzer: all the incredible feats that snatch victory from an almost certain loss.
What we rarely think about is the pain these athletes—and we ourselves—go through to reach such incredible high moments. This is not just football, or the obvious physical games. When you watch our young gymnasts compete for gold in Brazil, think for a moment about how many hours of pain they have worked through in order to land that perfect dismount. Think of the strains and sprains they have endured. When you see one of our runners cross the finish line first or extend themselves to jump the farthest a person has ever jumped, think about all the times life knocked them down and they got back up.
If athletes suffer pain to reach Olympic glory, how much more does a Christian soul suffer to be fit and ready for heaven? I don’t mean to say God chooses to punish us or harm us to train us. But I do know that God is the balm that heals. But, all the same, life throws some hard lessons our way, and we’ve got to be tough to overcome them. When we get pushed from the godly path, it’s not God who did the pushing, but to reach His glory, we have got to be strong enough to get up and get back on it again.
Which brings us to Paul. The thorn in his side is so famous, I hardly need to explain the context. We know he suffered, and we know he overcame and continued to believe. But what we don’t linger on is that he pleaded to have it taken away. He begged to be free of the pain, and God didn’t take it away.
Why is that? Why wouldn’t God come down and simply remove that thorn, pluck it right out, and let Paul go on with his business? In fact, why doesn’t God come down right now and take away our sense of loss or our setbacks or our injured hearts and bodies? Why doesn’t God just make it easy?
God answered that for Paul, and for us. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s pain showed him the truth before God’s greatest mystery: that He is perfect in weakness. It’s the reason our Lord had so much sympathy for the lepers and the blind and the poor. It’s the reason He came to many of you. God comes to us when we are broken, and He proves Himself in the process of healing.
Peter mentions in the verse above from his first epistle, that when we suffer, we have to recommit ourselves as Christians. Essentially, he’s telling us to keep pushing harder, to let the sprain heal and get back out on the mat or on the track, to keep pushing ourselves and our faith. We can’t just ignore pain, we’ve got to conquer pain, to turn pain into a motivator that brings us back all the stronger—all the more dedicated—to God. None of those athletes would be at the Olympics if they let pain keep them from their goals. They saw the glory waiting for them if they pushed a little harder through the tough moments; they could see the triumph that comes to a conqueror who won’t give up. And that made the victory sweeter in the end because it wasn’t easy.
Three verses earlier, Peter tell us, “If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name” (4:16). That tells us that when we think of conquering, we have to remember to conquer shame first. There is a sense of failure that comes with struggle sometimes, that we aren’t good enough because we feel pain.
We’ve got to get our minds around the idea that pain is a part of progress. Building muscle requires we put stress upon those muscles to make them grow. At times, that can be painful, but the end result is more strength and more overall health. It’s the same with our spiritual muscles. We become stronger in our faith when we are challenged by life. Every time we conquer an obstacle, our spiritual muscles get stronger, even if we feel a little spiritually sore afterward.
Remember that lesson as you watch our men and women take to the podium in Brazil this year. These young people have conquered a great deal to get there. And as you climb the stairs towards the Kingdom of Heaven, you will have done so too.
