Does God Use Pain....?

[Marilyn777]

Do you think God has ever used pain and suffering to get your attention? If so, what was He trying to get across to you?

I think God used my mothers death to get my dad's attention. He was not a believer before she died, but since her death he has been going through her books and different notes and has come to realize that God is very real. He is even started to read the Bible and pray on his own now. My dad is convinced that an angel touched his hand on the night of my mother's funeral, to comfort him in his grief. And who are we to say it didn't happen, he felt so comforted by the touch it still brings tears to his eyes when he talks about it. So yes I do believe God will use whatever it takes to get our attention.

Jesus is the great healer

Marilyn

[Adstar]

I cannot be sure but i feel that God allows us to feel pain so that we can have more empathy and compassion on others who are suffering like we have. God said He would not make us endure more than we can handle. And yes i believe that the death of a loved one has caused many to seek God. Maybe something that they would never seriously do otherwise.

All Praise The Ancient of Days

[FaithfulFollower]

Marilyn,

This is another interesting topic brought up here. Truthfully I feel that God could use any situation to draw many or any of his lost children to him. However, I do not feel it was God himself who brings us the pain, but his enemy, satan himself. Satan uses our weakness as well as the things or people that we love within our daily loves to topple our relationships with Christ.

As of recently in my life, upon the day that I gave my heart to God once again and promised to strive to work to become a missionary or sunday school teacher satan has been doing whatever he can that is within his power to make me feel discouraged. Unfortunately he has gotten rather close to succeeeding at times for in his working so hard to topple my relationship with Christ, he has taken my friends from me. Still at the same time, it is almost as if God were silently trying to whisper to me that the friends I had were not true friends nor the kind I should have had in my walk with Christ.

Once again Marilyn, this is truly a thought provoking question. Awesome post!

With Love In Christ,

Danielle

[Orr v'emet]

I agree with everyone here so far. I think that God allows things to happen which is quite different than causing things to happen. It's up to us to make the most of a bad situation so to speak. As in everything in life we should be asking God what we can learn from any situation that comes our way, the good the bad and the ugly.

When someone you love dies you are really forced to think about life after death, believers and unbelievers alike. Believers relish in the joy that death is not the end. For unbelievers it can be a situation where you experience a crisis of beliefs. You know, what do I think about life after death, is there a heaven and hell, is there a God? This is a wonderful opportunity for God's work to begin in someone who doesn't believe because it's more real than at any other point in their life.

[Guest dollface]

I believe God does cause us to change.Relationsips that could interfear with our walk with Christ may fall away.. I have seen this in my own life, it seems that if I stayed in the same relationships in the same way, I would not have had the time to read and learn Gods word.

I may have been affraid of rejection, and may have gone back to being a part of old ways in my former group of friends and family. Through the seperation I have seen things I used to do, that are not in agreement with Gods word.

Listening to the people that were the most influential in my life and believing things they said caused me to agree with them,just because everyone else did..Now through the time apart I have received courage to seperate their thoughts and ideas and mine from those contrary to Gods words.

The Lord has put people in my life that help me in this journey,I now see how I can follow Gods word, change my life, and not have to defend why. I still pray for my family to be born again and wish they accepted me But that does not interfear or change me.

I now through my diligent seeking have received enough of Gods word, to not be changed and the courage, faith, and belief to not be afraid of anyone's opinion except JESUS'S. The Pain of being rejected had a purpose, it brought me closer to GODS word, and showed me how JESUS suffered and was rejected and how much HE loved me. He did it for me what can I do for HIM>

[Jacqueline]

I believe that God does use pain and sorrow to get our attention. In fact in my case I know that he did. I sheltered my self as a child from this world. I wanted no part of it. I knew there was something far more better then it and yet deep in my heart there was a part that wanted to be accepted by it. I began to want to be a part of the pack so to speak. God in his great wisdom gave me exactually want my heart desired. I was finally accepted by this world. One of the group. People wanted to hing out with me finally. But to be one of them I had to give up a lot of who I was and what I believed. I couldn't have God and this world. I was happy for a moment being one of the them, but without God's protection my world started to fall a part. I actually became worst then the people I was hinging with. Love had no part in my life for my self or anyone else.

The person I use to be was so far off from who I became that even the people who I hung out with started questioning me and me in my new form lashed out at them in fits of anger. I weight a hundred and six pound and I was consuming about ten shots of voka a night and smoke a pack of cigg's. I started doing things that I'm so ashame of now.

I started to feel trapped. Things that the Lord had helped me through in the past started to weight heavy in my heart. I felt completely alone. Something that I'd never felt before. This feeling wasn't just feeling lonily. It was so over whelming that the thought of taking my own life to end it seemed right. I remember crying out to God asking him why had he forsaken me. Those were my words, why have you forsaken me? One day I looked in the mirror and I realized that I didn't know the person staring back at me. In fact I hated the person I could see and I asked him again. Jesus why have you forsaken me? I didn't get a answer, but I didn't want to live that way any more so I decided to stop drinking and hinging out with my friends. I didn't watch anything except TBN. I started reading my bible everyday. Every night that I wouldn't drink I would wake up in the middle of the night and see things in my room that would scare the mess out of me and I'd endure it for a few nights and then right back to drinking I would go. This went on for a few months until one night it scared me so badly that I ran down my steps into the kitchen and fell to my knees and begged Jesus to make it stop. I begged him to save me and Glory be to God, He did. He lead me to a church by my home and I've been there every since.

What all of this boils down to is God knew my heart even when I didn't. He knew that there was a part of me that wanted this world. He knew that until I learned that I don't belong to this world, but to Him I could never become what He made me to be. So He gave me my hearts desire to show me the difference between being a child of His and a child of this world. Did I go through pain and sorrowing..... man did I ever, but God in His great wisdom used it to bring me home where I've always belong.

After wards while thinking about the things that I want through I found my self asking God that same question. Why did you forsaken me? This time I did get an answer. His answer makes me shake my head when ever I think about it. He said I didn't leave you you left me. He's right I did and I pray that I'm never that stupid again. This may sound weird, but I thank God every day for what I went through because if I hadn't I would have lived my whole life believe that I knew Him when in fact I didn't. I only knew of Him.

God Bless You

Jacqueline

[Kabowd]

Yes, God can and will use suffering and pain for various reasons in our lives. We can look at Job, Hosea, Joseph, David, the apostle Paul, every martyr and even Jesus Himself and see that God is more interested in our character than our comfort. Without suffering we wouldn't appreciate His grace and peace so much. If you've never been thirsty, how can you appreciate the rain?

[littleladyinblack]

That would be unbelievably cruel if He did.

If He thinks He is getting ANYWHERE by causing my pain, He is terribly mistaken.

Anyways, isnt God able to forsee the future? To know all?

Why wouldnt it be fixed beforehand?

This is why I dont believe.

Maybe He should try to take away some hurt to catch peoples attention.

I would think He'd have better ways, considering you believe he has infinite power.

I would think such pain would come from Satan, not God.

No, im not bitter at all.

Chazy.

[Kabowd]

That would be unbelievably cruel if He did.

If He thinks He is getting ANYWHERE by causing my pain, He is terribly mistaken.

Anyways, isnt God able to forsee the future? To know all?

Why wouldnt it be fixed beforehand?

This is why I dont believe.

Maybe He should try to take away some hurt to catch peoples attention.

I would think He'd have better ways, considering you believe he has infinite power.

I would think such pain would come from Satan, not God.

No, im not bitter at all.

Chazy.

I understand where you're coming from. And honestly, without the Holy Spirit it's hard to see things from the spiritual perspective. But as believers, we know that there is an eternal kingdom (after this life) and that everything we do here is to bring glory and honor to God. Sometimes temporary pain can result in an eternal blessing. (Trust me, i know this is hard to grasp if you are an unbeliever..it's hard enough when you do believe).

No one (i don't think) said that God causes our pain. In fact, I believe the contrary to be true. The only reason pain exists at all is because we have an enemy (satan) who seeks to destroy us. Because we can't see the spiritual realm, it's impossible to know the extent of suffering God has actually prevented. We can't see the numerous times He has protected us from things. If we aren't going to give Him credit for the good in the world, how dare we blame Him for the bad?

Yes, God knows all things and He has the power to change things. However, think about a parent/child relationship for a minute. A good daddy will allow the doctor to give his son a shot if he knows it will prevent a disease and protect his son right? God knows what is best for us, we don't. Sometimes He allows things to take place because they will benefit us somehow. They may seem painful at the time, but later we can look back and see that it was for our own good. It doesn't make sense to us alot of times, but His ways are not our ways. That's where faith comes into play.

Pain stretches and sometimes shakes our faith. If everything was perfect and worked out our way we would all be nothing more than selfish, spoiled brats who didn't even appreciate what we had. Without sorrow and pain ...joy and peace doesn't taste as sweet. How can you appreciate a sip of water if you've never been thirsty or a taste of fresh bread if you've never been hungry?

[littleladyinblack]

But, what if that pain is too much and pushes someone to their breaking point?

I know the world cant be perfect, I would actually hate that.

But some people dont even know what happiness feels like.

Chazy.