Living With Chronic Pain – Spiritual Healing – Some Gifts of Suffering
Sometimes it takes an accident or a disease or something beyond our comprehension to really get our attention. That is what suffering did for me. It pulverized my false illusions about being invincible in my personal and professional pursuit of excellence. Material and relational ambitions took a backseat to a search for inner truth.
In essence, suffering tore down many belief systems I had as an American Christian. The mindset to become something spectacular or something bigger or something to emulate, even among my Christian peers, came crashing down when undergoing four neck surgeries. I was no longer invincible, and in effect, many others, including my Christian friends, wanted nothing else to do with me. It was like I became some form of contamination due to injury, weakness and what is usually unspoken – this happening of injury must have occurred because of sin or lack of faith. I am sure many of you can relate to these types of false accusations.
But what really happened to me turned out to be a gift. Because of suffering, my outlook toward my way of thinking, believing and living changed. For instance, linear thinking and works-based performance about faith dissolved. Deductive reasoning about spiritual growth demonstrated incorrect results. The theological doctrine for today that obedience always leads to blessing of health and wealth and disobedience brings about curses proved obsolete.
Self-image and self-importance and self-improvement may very well be the rewards of this worldly life. But for those whose entire lives are being transformed because of suffering, the better life is about having a better hope, which is a deeper relationship with God.
Another lesson of suffering is the lack of predictability of faith. In other words, you can’t exactly predict the outcomes of faith or magically navigate its course toward superstitious blessing. Suffering separates the men from the boys when it comes to understanding prayer and faith.
Suffering shows you that faith is not something controlled by man, even if he or she has the Holy Spirit within him or her. Instead, it is about being in love with the administrator of faith, which is Jesus Christ. If you believe and practice Christianity, suffering creates a stronger need for dependence upon God, not on your own talents or abilities to accomplish or methods of saying the right things in prayer.
In conclusion for this blog, suffering does away with the nonsense of the religious nonsense, and brings you to the place of meaningful truth.
Keep me on your favorites. Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.
