Don't Waste Your Pain

Sometimes He allows pain to change our focus back to Him. I remember 6 years ago when my goal was to have a baby and get my Master’s degree. I was focused on me and my dreams for my life. My pain changed all of that. I refocused for awhile on my pain. It became my life. Each day reminded me I was not happy and healthy. I focused inward instead of outward. You see… in or out of pain I was still focused on me! God was calling me to a life focused on Him and with or without the pain, at that time, I was focused on me. Doesn’t that seem to be how it goes for us? 

Satan has a way of messing with our minds. When we are happy he wants us to think only about what will make us happy and when we are suffering, he wants us to only look to what will make us well. Do we give credit where credit is due? If we truly believe God is sovereign we would be crediting God for each blessing in our life. In the same way, when things are not going well we blame others or God. We ask questions like, “Why is this happening to me?” or “I don’t deserve this.” Again we focus on ourselves. We come to God when things are broken and messed up and expect Him to fix them as if He was in our lives as our magic genie. I have learned slowly over the last few years that whether I am living happily or in a lot of pain and duress that my focus needs to be on God and others, not myself.