Muscle Pain & God

Recently a distressed and depressed friend of mine explained her extreme circumstance to me. As she cried, she pleaded for the answer to a question that every one of us asks at some point in our lives. “Why must we be broken?” At that moment, I’m almost positive that as someone who has been a Christian most of my life, I should have had a very scriptural, spiritual answer. However, when I opened my mouth to speak, an analogy based on something I had learned from the Food Network show “Good Eats” is what actually came out. As I spoke the words, I was surprised at how well the analogy was working, and seemed to be comforting my friend, so I’ve decided to share it with you.

I explained to my friend how when you work your muscles with the intent of building them and making yourself stronger, they rip apart. Sounds painful doesn’t it? Well, if you’ve ever worked out or even lifted a heavy box more than a couple of times, you know that it IS! The pain you feel is the muscle tissue pulling apart. Guess what happens next. Blood rushes to the muscle and fills in the gaps. Carried in the blood is oxygen and nutrients the muscle needs, not build new muscle, but to expand the existing muscle.

That’s just what happens to us. When we submit our lives to Him, and ask Him to mold us and make us, bend us, break us. He doesn’t take that stuff lightly. He answers those prayers. He comes in and tears some things like pride and complacency down. He rips some things out of our lives. Sometimes that may be a person or group of people that God knows could be replaced with better stronger ones, and then comes the pain. Oh..the pain! What we don’t realize is that pain is a good thing! I watched a show recently about a little girl who has a very rare nerve condition. She feels NO pain. At first I thought that would be a great disease to have, but then I watched as she repeatedly ran into walls, touched the bright red burners on the stove and countless other things that bruised, burned and broke her body. Her brain did not send the signal that the stove was hot, so she didn’t jerk back in pain at the first feeling of heat. Instead her fingers was nearly melted off, before a family member came to her rescue.

Pain protects us from danger and builds our strength of character. Show me someone who has walked through a valley and I will show you a person who knows the joy of a mountain top. Now, back to the muscle pain...God uses this time of pain to humble us, often bringing things into focus. Ever notice how every time you try to move that muscle it hurts? How you can’t focus on anything else when you’re trying to use it? It brings great focus to that particular part of your body.

The good thing in all of this is that after the pain subsides, and you get to feeling like your old self again, you aren’t really your OLD self. You are a stronger you! You are able to accomplish more, easier and faster than you have ever done before. This is true spiritually as well. Before Israel could posses the land that God had prepared for them, they had to observe the commandments God gave to them, so that they would have the strength to go in and take over the land. I assured my friend that on the other side of this trial, she was sure to be stronger, and that seems to make the pain some how bearable, because we all want to be strong. Why do we want to be strong? Because we want to endure. We want to climb. We want to accomplish and posses. Don’t be afraid of the pain, but embrace it as a time of change and advancement!

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