"The Pain Of Life"

People get so beaten down in their lives at times, they find little to be joyful about. They read Jam. 1:2, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." That seems to add more misery to what is going on. People start avoiding everything that makes them uncomfortable, even the word the God. I recently had a sister in Christ tell me that she didn't want to read anything unless is was all positive, even if that meant from God's word. She had fallen into a deep spiritual decay as a result of her struggles. How can one consider it as joy when problems pound on our heart and mind each and every day?

Our minds go to Gethsemane as Jesus fell down, pouring our His heart before His Father. You read the sobbing and agonizing begging, pleading and He counted it all joy? Where do we see that? The drops of blood that took place of His sweat showed an intense agony in His being. What are we to make of this?

Upon close looking at Jesus in Gethsemane, down below the pain and distress, deeper below the desire to avoid the loss if possible, there was this deeper desire to do the will of God. The joy was found in pleasing His Father more than anything else on earth. It is this desire, this pleasing that drives Jesus forward at the darkest hour of His earthly existence. He loved His Father and that love drove Him to do His Father's will.

We see it in Paul when he requested the thorn to be taken away (II Cor. 12). Paul hurt and that hurt drove him to asking for relief, not once, not twice but three times! But deep down, below the desire to be free from the enduring pain was this deeper desire and that was to be faithful to a heavenly Father who was faithful to him. He looked at this pain-bringing thorn from a deeper perspective and found to his glad surprise that it raised his level of living in a true service to the Lord! It was the conviction of faith that lead him to seeing the joy during his agony. For us, the agony in and of itself was nothing to be joyful over but then such things don't exist in and of themselves! Now that's something we need to ponder.