Using Pain As an Onramp + “A Sword Shall Pierce Thy Soul”
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Using Pain As An Onramp to the Habit of Daily Bible Reading and Prayer:
1. Wear down the path to His presence. Instead of allowing your pain to make you bitter, toxic, and hard, allow your pain to pave the path to His feet.
2. Learn to see every twinge of pain as an invitation to fellowship.
3. Remember that your pain does not disqualify you from relationship with Jesus. It rather makes you a prime candidate. He came for those who needed salvation and healing.
*Disclaimer: This is not wallowing. This is a bridge to wholeness and healing and life of “life more abundantly.”
“A Sword Shall Pierce Thy Soul”
The other day, I heard someone speaking about Mary and the shame and pain associated with her role as the mother of the Savior. (Shame may be the wrong, but definitely ridicule and assumptions from those around her who had not heard the words of the Angel, as he spoke, “blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.”) (This is something I’ve noted and written about from time to time: her promise came with a promise of pain.) This day, Simeon’s words came to mind: “A sword shall pierce thine own soul also.” As I looked at the verse in the Bible, I noticed something I hadn’t before: Simeon doesn’t just promise pain…He promises pain with a purpose. “Yea, a sword shall pierce thine own soul also, THAT the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed.” The pain of one was going to touch many. Her deep, personal, cutting, piercing pain was not without a “reason;” it was not without a point or a purpose.
I am not exactly sure what “so that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed” means, exactly. I have looked back to the Greek, and Googled, and read every commentary I could find, but no clear picture. Most commentaries seem to gloss past that line or give very little insight. Even without a clear picture of “how” they’d be affected, it is clear that her pain would touch many. It would impact others outside of herself.
How Mary must have known pain…pain so deep that Simeon described it as a “sword piercing her heart…” the most tender and necessary part of her inmost being invaded and penetrated by searing pain. From the very earliest days of her story, pain was a feature. Pain of assumption and rumors. Pain of Joseph wanting to put her away privately. (Matthew 1:19) Pain of a long journey, being “great with child” (Luke 2:5) and pain of labor with not attending nurses or physicians, no sweet mother whose hand to hold, as her body ushered the infant Messiah into the world. The pain of wanting the best for your baby, yet having only swaddling cloths to wrap in in and a feed trough to lay him in. (Luke 2:7) Pain of leaving anything familiar to escape a death threat from the reigning king, and pain of raising her child for 2 years away from doting grandparents and any comforts of home. (Matthew 2:13-23) Pain from the fear of losing Jesus. “Son, why have you thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” And, undoubtedly, pain at the truth of his reply: “How is it that you sought me? Wist he not that I must be about my Father’s business? (Luke 2:42-49) Pain of what must have felt like rejection as she asked to speak to Jesus during the yar of His ministry, only to hear Him say, “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?” He goes on to say that the disciple are His mother and his brethren. Ouch. (Matthew 12:47-49) And then there is “that moment,” a moment that must have been pain like no other. “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother…” Pain of watching her child be beaten, bloodied and bruised…being killed as a common Roman criminal…a shameful, painful death in a common forum. How the prophesied sword must have pierced her heart as the sound of the crowd’s chant, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him,” and the sound of the soldier’s hammers driving the nails pierced her ears. She knew He had done no wrong, yet here it was, ending like this? This moment must have been pain in it’s purest, most brutal form. Raw, pulsing pain soothed only in small part as Jesus sees her, and asks John, His most loved disciple, to care for her. “Woman, behold thy son,” and to John, “Behold thy mother.”
Undoubtedly, there were other moments of pain as well, woven into the tapestry of her life, but these are the painful scenarios that are plainly captured in the text of Scripture. A sword pierced her heart, but not without a point. Her pain would affect “the many.” The birth of her son, so fraught with scandal in the moment would become the dividing line of all history. The death of her son would be the very thing that would bring hope to lost humanity. The sounds of the pounding nails that rang in her ears would send shockwaves throughout eternity. The pain of watching here sweet, sinless Son suffer and die would see salvation won for everyone. Her pain served a far greater purpose than she could fathom in the fleeting moments of her lifetime. The pain of ONE would impact MANY.
And so it is with your pain…my pain. Our pain is never pointless. Pain, when surrendered to God (and this is the key), becomes the very thing that allows us to live for more than self. Pain produces beautiful qualities in lives…Painful places become the birthplace of empathy and compassion. Crushing pain produces brokenness and anointing. Pain that is forgiven and released produces sweetness in a soul. Pain produces depth as it channels it’s way ever deeper into the heart of an individual. Pain works in ways and teaches things that could never be rivaled by a college degree or a case full of trophies and accomplishments. Pain, and a proper response to it, will purify and strengthen, just like a fire to gold or a kiln to clay. Pain is one of God’s greatest tools, and He always employs it in the lives of those He intends to use. Pain is NEVER pointless. Pain is God’ greatest producer.
Some time ago, I heard a quote from Rev. Aaron Soto: “Pain is the story of the Bible.” Over and over…again and again…story after story this is the case. Every person whose life touched “many hearts” walked through painful seasons. The words spoken to Mary: “A sword shall pierce thine own soul also, so that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed,” could’ve been spoken to any number of great men and women on the pages of Scripture. “Abraham…Job…Moses…Ruth…David…Hezekiah…Esther…Paul…Mary of Bethany, Peter…I’m going to allow you to endure excruciating pain so that your one little life will touch and affect many lives. After you’ve walked through and endured and forgiven and surrendered your pain and painful circumstances, you will no longer be living for self. Your life will be a life of impact. The sword in your soul will be for the hearts of many. This is how I work…don’t despise it. Your pain has a point. Press into it and let it press and crush you into Me.
Gene Edwards, in his book, “A Tale of 3 Kings,” wrote, “God did not have, but wanted very much to have men who would live in pain.” One of the greatest reasons God uses pain is that it produces dependence. It forces and creates a reliance upon God that nothing else can. Waves of sorrow wash a soul into the shelter of His presence again and again. Pain keeps a person needy…it produces desperation and desire for eh One who allowed it. Pain breaks us down, so that He may be ALL through us. It makes us humble. It keeps us weak.
Whatever pain you’ve endured or are enduring is NOT WITHOUT A POINT. The “sword” that pierces your soul will touch other if you all it to. Allow God to mold and meld through the medium of pain. Don’t run from it…let it push you into Him and allow it to form Him in you. With Charles Spurgeon, you will look back and say, “I have learned to kiss the wave that crushes me into the Rock of Ages.” Your pain will produce something so beautiful, and it will touch “the hearts of many.”
Just like Mary, the pain of the one would impact MANY HEARTS. One day, maybe from eternity, you will look back and say, “Thank you for the sword.”
"There was given to me…" Can, then, the thorn be a gift from God? I am in the habit of seeing God’s gifts in the abundance of the things which my life possesses, and I call those things the dangers of life which diminish the sum of its abundance. But here there is a complete reversal of my thought; the abundance is the danger, and that which diminishes it is the gift.
Paul has been exalted above measure; he has been standing on the heights of prosperity, and summering in the sunshine of a cloudless day. The cloudlessness of the day is his greatest danger, and there is sent a mist over the sun. His spiritual life has been fragrant with the breath of flowers. The thorn is, for the time, God’s best gift to his soul; there is something protective in it. It has no fragrance, it has no beauty, but it yields one of the sweetest uses of adversity. It reminds a human spirit that it is, after all, only human.
My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory.
Thou, Divine Love, whose human path has been perfected through sufferings, teach me the glory of my cross, teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow. Reveal to me that my strength was the product of that hour when I wrestled until the breaking of the day. Then shall I know that my thorn was blessed by Thee, then shall I know that my cross was a gift from Thee, and I shall raise a monument to the hour of my sorrows, and the words which I shall write upon it will be these: "It was good for me to have been afflicted" (Psalm 119:71).
— George Matheson —
I don’t know what pain you’ve walked through or are currently walking through, but I know a God who wants to meet you there. He wants to save you, give you counsel, comfort you, and heal your broken heart. He’s hoping you will use your pain to be an onramp to an incredible relationship with Him.