Pain versus Suffering

Some friends and I were mutually encouraging each other this week. We are struggling with being full-time students and bemoaning the woes of reading textbooks, conducting online research, creating PowerPoint presentations, and writing papers. All of these friends are also a spouse, a parent, an employee, and serve in ministry at their church or in some other volunteer capacity in their communities. As we encouraged each other I thought of an idea I read in a book years ago.

The idea presented by the author was one of pain versus suffering. Pain is a fact of life. Regardless of how hard we try we cannot avoid the pain that is a part of life. Life just hurts sometimes. But suffering is something different. Suffering is what happens when we try to wrestle life to the ground and make it behave on our own terms. Suffering occurs when we do not let go of a pain and move on. I’ve been challenged today to look at areas in which I think I might be suffering and determine whether or not I am trying to make life behave on my terms.

What about you? Is what you are experiencing pain? Or is it suffering? Are you giving certain feelings and emotions power over you to such a degree that they keep you in a continual state of suffering? Maybe you are like my friends and I who are so frustrated with doing homework as we work on our college degrees that the thought of writing one more paper is enough to push us over the edge. Maybe you are a stay-at-home mom or dad and the thought of changing one more diaper, cleaning up one more spill, or dealing with the chaos makes you want to scream. Maybe you are an empty nester and this season of life with adult children leaves you with a feeling of melancholy you cannot seem to shake. Or maybe you are in a work environment where expectations are unrealistic and mercy is non-existent. You go home every night so stressed out and exhausted you do not have any energy to give to the rest of life. Maybe you are just trying to survive the current economic crisis. Have you lost a loved one through death or a divorce and the grief feels like a wrecking ball has made a home in your heart even though the event occurred some time ago?

It is possible to take steps to minimize and even eliminate our suffering. The first step is to determine how much of our suffering is caused by trying to hold onto things we cannot control. Take the time to experience whatever is going on. Do not deny it or ignore it. Let your emotions have their say and do not fight back against something that cannot change. Recognize the situation for what it is. But don’t stay sitting in your emotions. Move onto the second step: accept it. To accept it means you no longer fight against the situation or you make a choice to change. Change yourself or, if possible, change the circumstance. Even if you cannot change the circumstance you can change your attitude about it. The final step is to get over it. Let go of the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that keep you in a state of suffering and move on. If you do this, you will put yourself in a place to receive healing and recovery. The pain may still exist to one degree or another but the suffering no longer affects your viewpoint about life.

Experience it. Accept it. Get over it. This is a process and will take time so be patient with yourself. Believe that you can minimize your suffering and experience joy in life. Pain versus suffering…the choice truly is yours.

You Can't Live Life in Bed!

I am a thinker personality type and it is not uncommon for me to wake up in the morning and lay in bed thinking about the day, even the week ahead of me. I imagine the things that need to happen and what might go wrong if I try to accomplish this or that. I naturally slip into thinking about the consequences and next steps after completing the things I have thought about. And what if I fail or can’t do it? I then think about backup plans A, B, C, and all the way through ZZ should my original plan not produce the desired results!! On a recent morning while still in bed I was in this thinking mode and I felt the Lord tell me that I “can’t live life in bed.” It was time to get up and get to it.

Do you live your life in bed? Maybe you live your life in a chair or on the couch. You get up, go to work, come home, and sit in the chair and watch TV until it’s time to go to bed and then you do it all over again the next day. While you are laying in bed, sitting in the chair or on the couch, do you think about the life you want? Do you think about having a more consistent relationship with God? A more satisfying marriage? A better relationship with your children? A more satisfying job? A physically fit body? A general attitude of being able to enjoy life? All of these desires are good ones but to have what you are thinking about you have to get out of bed, out of that chair, or off that couch and you have to do something about it. Wanting it will not be enough. You have to get up and get to it.

If you do not get up and actually live life, you place yourself in a vulnerable position of distraction. Thoughts simmer about what you want but an interesting dynamic happens when you do not actively pursue positive things…you tend to think about what is wrong with the things in your life that you would like to change. As you continue to brood on what is wrong, you can fall prey to all kinds of deception from Satan.

What kinds of deception can we fall prey to when we are not applying effort towards desires that are God approved? Subtle traps like the mindset that nothing will change, addiction to mindless TV, busyness, or shopping . Horrible traps such as an adulterous affair, the use of or addiction to alcohol, drugs, or pornography. Whether subtle or blatantly horrible, private or public, the traps are designed to keep us from fulfilling God’s plan for our lives. When we do not live life the way God has designed we open ourselves to all manner of evil regardless of how subtle or horrible.

Do not live life from an inactive state and run the risk of falling prey to those things that can make your life ineffective. Do not allow Satan to distract and blind you from what God wants to do through someone who is willing to live life by His design. Get up and live life with the purpose for which you have been created, to love God and keep His commands. Then let Him lead you and guide you in what you must do to experience a deeper relationship with God and experience joy and peace and whatever you work towards. Nothing will happen if you lay around or sit around. If you do nothing, you have nothing, and you get nothing.

Don’t live life from bed. Get up and get to it!

Scriptures
Ecclesiastes 12:13: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commands, for this is the whole duty of man.”

John 10:10: “I [Jesus] have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”