Your Pain Has a Purpose

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." — 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 

When is God most likely to use you?

You might think it's when everything is going well—when you're strong, successful, and put together. But I've discovered something that doesn't make sense to our human minds: God often uses us in the greatest way in the middle of our greatest pain.

Stephen Curtis Chapman recently performed at our church. Years ago, he wrote a song called "Glorious Unfolding" that meant so much to my wife Ginger when she lost her mother to glioblastoma cancer. It was devastating. Ginger's grandmother lived to 103—strong genes ran in that family. Her mother was a health food nut, didn't have an ounce of fat on her, took all her vitamins, did everything right. And yet she didn't make it anywhere near that age.

I talked with Stephen in our Fellowship Hall about that song. He told me God gave him that song when they lost their daughter. I looked at him and said, "Isn't it wild that sometimes it is in our greatest pain and through our greatest pain that God is glorified, and He uses us the most?"

He said, "I don't get it."

I said, "Neither do I."

But here's the truth: God will give you a ministry sometimes in the middle of your pain. Out of our pain, we get squeezed. When we get squeezed, whatever is in us comes out of us. When Paul got squeezed by opposition and suffering, his deep love for people was expressed.

Your pain is not pointless. The comfort God gives you in your darkest hour is meant to overflow into the lives of others walking through similar darkness. That struggle you're facing? That heartbreak you've endured? God wants to use it.

Don't waste your pain by hiding it. Let God transform your deepest wounds into your most powerful ministry.