The Gift of Pain?

“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.’” John 4:13-14

While sitting up a night with a nagging pain that won’t let me sleep, I can hardly think of pain as a gift. Yet physical pain, as difficult as it is to endure sometimes, is actually a gift. If we did not have pain, our injuries and illnesses would go undetected. If it didn’t hurt when you cut yourself, you might bleed to death without knowing it. Pain is a red flag that indicates a problem needs to be addressed. As much as I would like the pain to go away on its own, the truth is if the pain simply went away, I would probably just go back about my business and never address the underlying problem. Pain serves a greater good.

As with physical pain, the trials and disappointments of life can also serve a greater good. If life were perfectly smooth and never interrupted by difficulty, each one of us would simply go about our business and never address our need for God. Without trials, our need for God would go undetected and we would die in our sin, separated from the God who made us. 

Laura Story, in her song Blessings, makes this point so well. She writes:

“What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is a revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?”

The pain of life serves a greater good. It points us to our need for God. It reveals a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy. While traveling through Samaria, Jesus stopped at a well to rest. There he met a woman with a sordid past. She had been married five times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband. She came to the well to meet a physical need, but when she met Jesus, she realized she had a greater thirst she had been trying to satisfy through multiple relationships. Jesus used the gift of pain to reveal to her a greater thirst that only he could satisfy.