Embrace Your Pain and Be Blessed! (Part 6)
William Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Executive Director of New Hope Crisis Counseling, Crystal Cathedral
Clinical Psychologist & Spiritual Director, ChristianSoulCare.com
WRESTLING WITH GOD FOR HIS BLESSING
Like Jacob we need to wrestle with God when we're in pain by searching for God's face in our struggle and learning the new name he gives us. Forgiving those who sin against us, confessing our own sins, persevering in trials, and choosing to suffer for Christ's sake are each, in different ways, opportunities to deepen our intimacy with God and to live out our calling to serve him with our unique talents. This is what the Bible teaches. It's the kind of persevering faith that the Bible heroes in Hebrews 11 lived out and that Christians today, like many of those I've counseled, also live out. By identifying the type of pain we're in and responding with the kind of faith that is appropriate to what's going on we can discover joy of the Lord in the midst of pain.
Like Job, who had family and servants murdered and wealth stolen though he did nothing wrong, when God allows us to suffer because of someone else's sins we can remain faithful to him as we struggle to forgive our offenders and to heal and learn while we wait for God's response.
Like David, who suffered so much pain in his family and his kingdom because of committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband, when we suffer because of our own sins we too can cry out for God's mercy, trusting him to turn our lives around and bring about a deeper intimacy, joy, and Christian service then we've known before.
Like Naomi, who suffered the undeserved tragedies of losing her husband and two sons before eventually holding her daughter-in-law's boy (the ancestor to Jesus), we can trust that God will eventually replace our broken dreams with better ones of a deepening intimacy with our loving Lord and a growing faith, both of which will blossom for eternity.
And like Paul, who chose to put himself at risk of many torturous beatings and imprisonments and hardships as a missionary, we can choose to give up pleasures and privileges in this life for eternal reasons, to accept pain in order to gain Christ and live out the life and calling he has given us.
But we can't do it alone! We need the encouragement and teaching of Biblical heroes like these and the love of "Christ's ambassadors" (2 Corinthians 5:7) in the Body of Christ. We need to depend upon our Good Shepherd who is with us in the valley of the shadow of death even when we don't feel Him. Our Shepherd will leads us in the right path and provide us what we need.
William Gaultiere, Ph.D. offers "Christian Soul Care" as a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director in Irvine, CA. He is also the Executive Director of the New Hope Crisis Counseling Center at the Crystal Cathedral where he's trained over 1,000 people in Christian counseling skills. He offers free encouraging articles on Psychology, Family, and Christian Spirituality and a monthly e-mail devotional that you can sign up for at his website, ChristianSoulCare.com.
