Remember what happened last year?
Remember when you suffered so much?
Remember when you had a catastrophic event that changed your life?
The pain may be forgotten, but some of the changes have remained.
The pain of the present is usually our focus.
Sometimes it can be a lingering pain that gnaws at us.
Job had lingering pain. He had to work through it with the Lord.
His comforters did not help with that.
He had to seek and try to understand the Lord and His ways.
He did a pretty good job. God responded to him and honored him far above his miserable comforters.
And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job,
the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends:
for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. Job 42:7
Remember when Jeremiah sunk in the mire?
Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire. Jeremiah 38:6
God loved Jeremiah. Jeremiah was fulfilling the purposes of God, the very reason he was sent to Earth, and yet, God let him sink in the mire. Mire is slushy, swampy, spongy, soggy dirt.
God still loved Jeremiah. He was still using him even though he was suffering.
Jeremiah, who was loved by God and used by God
had much suffering while he was being completely obedient to the Lord.
We can read of his pain in The Lamentations of Jeremiah.
it must have seemed like to him that it would never end. All that pain and suffering.
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. Lamentations 3:19-25
There is no pain like the present. It demands our attention.
Seeking the Lord during the pain. Letting Him help you. That is a good place to start.
Looking back, you will understand some of its purpose.
God does not look at pain the same way we do. There is always a higher reason that He allows it.
Humility comes from pain. It purges us. It reminds us that we are mere mortals
and that we really aren’t in control of much at all.