Pain avoidance

I've been reading in Jeremiah which is a book that I always used to avoid because it seemed so full of pain and bitterness. Jeremiah says, "Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! ...Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame" (20:14,18). Jeremiah is a man chosen by God to endure some pretty intense pain. And he's not happy about it. I don't think I would be either. Early in the chapter, he expressed himself to God saying "O LORD, you have deceived me and I have been deceived (or fooled me, and I have let myself be fooled?); you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed" (7) Jeremiah seems to be angry with the hand that he has been dealt in life, and if he could escape it, he would. Maybe in the beginning, being chosen by God for a special purpose sounded pretty cool, but he didn't count on the pain that would be involved in being a part of God's purposes.

There's something in our human nature that makes us run from pain, discipline, and hard work. We don't like the pain, and we just would rather choose a life without it. So many of our decisions are based on what will bring me the most amount of comfort and the least amount of pain. We think that avoiding problems or applying band-aid solutions will fix the pain, when it only masks the situation. We always look for the easy way out.

Though it doesn't really fix anything, my philosophical nature wants to ask why we do this. Possibly because we realize that maybe we were designed for life without so much pain. Maybe we think that there is an unknown form in a cave somewhere in which a pain free life exists. Even this idea is questionable. We think if we could live life without pain then all our problems would be over. Maybe that's true, but would that life really be the best life? But many will choose a life of "comfort," avoiding as many forms of pain as possible because it might get in the way of assumed pleasure.

However, are pain and pleasure mutually exclusive? My deepest pleasures in life come in the midst of some of the most painful times. On a disciplinary level, getting up at 5:30 A.M. on a Saturday morning to run for two to four hours in extreme heat or intolerably cold weather is an inconvenience and really not a pleasure. But the pleasure of finishing the race, to me, is worth it. Similarly, the pain of our circumstances or pain that comes from our relationships are extremely difficult sometimes and painful. Sometimes we just want to run away, but that won't take the pain away because at the heart of our pain is the realization that I can't control this event and I can't control this person. I cannot change the situation, and we come to that point of surrender to God's sovereign will. In the pain, like Jeremiah, God brings me to the point where I find God's glory in the pain, and I begin to understand those beatitudes beginning with "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Wesley says in his notes regarding this verse that "knowing that happiness is our common aim and that an innate instinct continually encourages us in the pursuit of it, he [Jesus] in the kindest manner applies to that instinct and directs it to its proper object. Though all men desire, yet few attain, happiness because they seek it where it is not to be found."

I begin to realize this life that I've been given is not my own, and though I do what I can with it, and though I will probably still try to avoid the pain, God can use every circumstance, every humiliation, every wonderful and not so wonderful person on this earth to bring us closer to him, helping us to surrender in obedience what we demand to what he has ordained. And from that perspective, even though I may not like it, there is beauty in the pain. And in the pain, I come to love more deeply the One who has ordained it.