Okay, get ready, because I'm gonna try to tackle the "meaning of life" subject here. I know life is incredibly complex, and this really only touches a small piece of the great "why," but it's still good stuff.
I was reading today in this wonderful book called Boundaries and I came across a paragraph addressing the fact that change is often only motivated by pain. Yes, sometimes obedience is enough to motivate us to change our behaviors. (God says ____, so I'm gonna choose to do it.) Sometimes the simple fact that something is good is enough to cause us to go after it. But sometimes change just seems too hard, or we keep getting distracted, or we get discouraged, and our desire for change just isn't quite strong enough to get us to the point where the change actually takes place. And when that's the case, what motivates change? Pain.
This, I believe, is why life is so freaking hard. Because the whole point of living is to BECOME. To see who we are, and who God is, and to grow and change and come to a place of deeper understanding. To learn things like patience, and thankfulness, and mercy. You can't have those qualities apart from living life and experiencing things. If God had designed us to be "perfect" from the start, without a sinful nature, without the ability to make choices and make mistakes and learn - essentially, if we were robots, designed to simply worship God and do everything "right" from the get go - could we really appreciate him fully? No. How could we ever understand and appreciate perfect love without seeing that perfect love overcoming and washing over our own imperfections? Could we have patience, apart from living through difficult times, and having to wait, and learning patience? No. Sure, we could have been designed to wait without anxiety... but patience, I think, isn't a lack of anxiety - it's the ability to overcome anxiety. And the list goes on. Could we love? No. Could we feel peace? No. Could we trust?
Apart from the trials of life - apart from our struggle with sin - could we really have any sort of genuine relationship with God? I don't think so. Even before the Fall, when Adam and Eve were still without sin, they had the ABILITY to sin. The choice was there. If it hadn't been - if there had been no forbidden tree - they couldn't have walked in obedience even for the brief time that they did, because without the ability to disobey, there is no obedience. There is no relationship without choice. Life itself is a growing experience made up of a combination of millions and millions of choices.
So, that was a cool little tangent, but back to the "pain motivates change" thing. If we are comfortable where we are, what motivates us to go somewhere else? To grow? This, I believe, is why Jesus told his disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because when you're rich, you're comfortable, and when you're comfortable, you are not motivated to change. But when you go through something really challenging, it kicks you into gear, and depending on how you choose to respond, you have an opportunity to grow and become more complete. More beautiful. More "in God's image."
Say, for example, you aren't a very good listener. You like to talk, to get your point across, and to prove yourself right. You interrupt, you argue, and you come across as selfish and uncaring. Maybe you haven't noticed this yet, or maybe you have and it just hasn't bothered you quite enough to motivate change. But when it causes you to lose a good friend - someone very dear to you - the pain you experience from your loss motivates a change in you.
I believe that God designed life this way, so that our experiences would mold us from lumps of clay into beautiful works of art. Pain is simply uncomfortable pressure. When you work with clay, you mold it with pressure. You press on it with your fingers, and as long as it is soft, the clay yields to the pressure and changes its form. God is the ultimate potter. He knows what he's doing, and even when it's uncomfortable to us at the time, God knows in the end it will work out for our good, and for his. We just have to choose to trust him, to soften to his touch and accept what he is doing in our lives. Of course, we can choose not to trust him, and often this is the choice we make. But when we harden against the pressure - when we push back - instead of molding us, the pressure breaks us.
Still, God is understanding and merciful and forgiving and PATIENT! Even when we harden and break, he can pick up the pieces and turn us into something beautiful. It might not be exactly the same thing he would have shaped us into if we had yielded to begin with... but I think that's okay. Our choices are what make us each unique. Still, I think it is good to bear in mind that the pain we experience in life has a purpose. It helps us get through difficult circumstances without losing hope. It's like childbirth, in a way. Delivering a baby is an extremely painful process. But it's very different than, say, getting whacked in the leg with a piece of wood. Because when you're in labor, the pain isn't just happening to you - it's accomplishing something wonderful. And remembering that helps you accept the pain and get through it. (I know this from experience!) Come to think of it, even the pain you feel from getting whacked with a piece of wood has purpose. It's a signal from your body telling you that it is injured and that you need to 1) be more mindful of your surroundings and, if possible, prevent this from happening again, and 2) be gentle with the injured area to allow it to heal. But that isn't quite as helpful as far as getting through the pain. Yes, it helps you heal and avoid future damage to your body... but that's not quite as encouraging as being able to say "Yes, this hurts, but in a little while I'm gonna get to hold my baby!"
Anyway. So it's helpful to remember that pain has purpose, and that God has good plans for us. Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, I do not believe that we have to experience pain as a payment for our sins. I believe any pain we experience, though at times it might seem like punishment, is for the purpose of growth and learning and strengthening and healing. It's for our good. The Bible says that God is like a father to us, and a good father disciplines his children out of love, so that they will learn and grow. And isn't that what we want? To learn and change and grow, and come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of God?
For me at least, the answer is a huge YES!
No comments:
Post a Comment