Anyone who experiences chronic pain will look at my title today and say, “Are you kidding me?”   All you want is relief, but pain is usually just a signal that something needs attention.  If your muscles are sore, you rest.  If your energy level is low, you eat better.  If your heart is aching over a lost love or depression, you try to keep your mind occupied with other things.

As with most things, we’re impatient.  We want relief right now. Some turn to things that will numb the pain or make them totally unconscious to it.  Some pack their lives with so much that they don’t have time to think about it.  Others simply refuse to recognize that the pain exists.

God didn’t create us to suffer.  That was our own doing, through disobedience.  We were created free from physical disability, mental or emotional hurt or the pangs of guilt.  He did, however create a wonderful mechanism in our brain that signals to us that something isn’t right inside of us.  Usually we’re spurred by this voice to do something about the pain.  We see a doctor, we work through it or we seek help.

God also gave us the conscience as another trigger.  Sometime that voice becomes hardened – glazed over by the world – the devil moves in and tries to reason with it – our flesh gives in to temptation.  There is a remedy for this when we allow the Holy Spirit to  work in us.  He strengthens us.  He protects us from the power of the devil, the world and our flesh.  He brings us new life.

In our physical and emotional lives, we can count on pain to remind us that something’s wrong.  In our spiritual walk, we can count on the Holy Spirit to make us right again.