Your Pain Has a Purpose: Slowing Down to Draw Near to God

Inside: What if the trial you’ve been trying to hurry through is not meant to be rushed? Here’s how your season of pain has a purpose.

Before I became a Christian, I was a staunch atheist. You’d think twice about sitting down next to me in the college cafeteria. I might hotly debate you on the non-existence of God over a room-temperature burger and cardboard fries. 

Yes, I was that kind of outspoken atheist.

Many years later as a Christian, I discovered that another kind of atheism lives in my heart:  functional atheism. Functional atheism happens when we believe in God but live as if it all depends on us. It causes us to live portions of our days—and life—without involving Him. 

God recently used a season of fierce suffering to burn away this kind of functional atheism. This is often what it takes. If you’re going through a season of pain too, He might be doing the same in you. 

What Does Functional Atheism Look Like?

Functional atheism is the condition of believing in God in theory but living without Him in practice. Regardless of how long we’ve been a Christian, we all have a little (or a lot) of functional atheism within our hearts. It’s due to our fallen human nature. 

During Sunday worship, we might profess to trust God, but come Monday morning we take the reins of control. We restlessly strive to achieve the outcomes we want, rather than what God would have. Instead of being God-reliant, we become self-reliant.

We believe prayer is important but don’t pray much. When difficulties arise, we attempt to solve them before going to God. Our minds go into overdrive because we doubt He’ll come through. 

We scour the internet for the best crowd-sourced solutions. We’re anxious because we can’t tolerate the uncertainty of the future. Meanwhile, our lives plow ahead at a pace that’s too fast for our own good.

Instead of seeking God expectantly, we’re secretly surprised when the smallest prayers are answered. We forget that we have a gracious Provider in times of need. A good God who delights in us. A powerful God who is with us—not against us—in storms. 

Two Choices, Two Paths

It takes seasons of pain to purge away this functional atheism. The less functional atheism in our lives, the more we become who God wants us to be. Yet this is a hard truth to swallow.

All of us naturally avoid pain as a means of protection. Our first reaction is to flinch and recoil, as when our hand touches a piping hot pan. 

So we treat pain as a problem to be solved and done away with. We might also dull the pain through distraction or plow through it with busyness. Anything to not feel the pain longer than we have to.

When it comes to times of hardship, we have two choices. We can lean into God even when we despise our circumstances. Or we can cling to the right to life as we would have it, growing bitter and distant from God in the process.

Which path are you headed down?

Pain often slows us down in ways we would never choose. Your pain has a purpose, and it can’t be hurried. This season is an opportunity to draw closer to God.

For it’s in these unwanted pauses that God often does some of His deepest work. Much spiritual fruit lies ahead for those who choose this path. We can hardly expect ourselves to embrace pain itself, but we can embrace the spiritual growth that pain brings. 

Nine Surprising Ways Your Pain Has a Purpose

So even if you can’t see it right now, your pain has a purpose. Here are some examples.

1. Pain kills our self-reliance.

In the book of Isaiah, the Israelites attempt to secure a political alliance with Egypt because they’re afraid of being invaded by Assyria. God says to them, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it” (Isaiah 30:15 NIV).

In other words, they’ll find strength not by placing their trust in their own plans but by returning to Him. 

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to the Israelites. When God wants me to trust Him, my first inclination is to say, “Wait, let me figure this one thing out first.” 

When life is on mid-level boss difficulty, we often manage to get by in our own strength. We may even insist on it. But when the difficulty is cranked up to a final boss on nightmare mode, we discover our strength isn’t enough.

Trials break down our self-reliance. Our usual strategies stop working. We realize we have no choice but to depend on God.

2. Pain teaches us the meaning of surrender.

It’s one thing to stop relying on ourselves. It’s another to relinquish complete control to God. We sing about surrendering during worship. We say so with our lips. But do we surrender with our lives?

When times are good, few of us will face this dilemma. In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes, “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.” 

It’s often only when we’re dangling at the end of our rope that we’re willing to surrender. Yet the more we learn to yield to Him, the more peace and joy we’ll experience. Such is the great paradox of the Christian life.

3. Pain shows us happiness is not the same as joy. 

When life is going well, it’s easy to mistake the happiness produced by comfortable circumstances for the spiritual fruit of joy. Happiness depends on our circumstances, but joy is independent of them.

We might find happiness in good things or even sinful ones. We also chase happiness, thinking we’ll attain it when we arrive at the next rung in the ladder of life. Or we think we’ll reach it when our latest set of problems go away. 

Painful trials reveal the ratio of happiness versus joy in our hearts. When our temporary happiness is taken away, how much underlying joy is left? 

Even if the answer disappoints us, God can fill us with His joy. Joy is a spiritual fruit given to us by God, rather than manufactured by ourselves. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

4. Pain reveals our personal idols.

Sometimes, we end up becoming complacent due to the good things in life. We don’t have room for more of God because our hearts are so crowded. The good things then become idols. 

An idol is anything that receives more time, energy, and attention than God does. We hold our idols close because the idea of losing them frightens us.

In Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller writes, “The human heart is an idol factory that takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things.” 

The truth is, you and I are idol-making machines. It’s just hard to see these idols until God reveals them one by one through our trials. Suffering shows us the false hope and confidence that we’ve placed in these idols.

The good news is that when we confess the things that we love more than God, we’re set free to love Him more.

5. Pain shows us escape is not the answer.

Lottery Fantasy Syndrome is the phenomenon of daydreaming about winning a mega-million-dollar jackpot to cope with daily stressors or feeling stuck in life. You might have your own version that you fantasize about when mired in the doldrums: “If only [fill in the blank] could happen, all my problems would go away.”

Pain shows us that changing our circumstances isn’t the solution to our troubles. That’s because part of our suffering comes from within. Hardship reveals our pride, uncertainty exposes our fears, and waiting uncovers our impatience. 

Suffering merely brings to light what is already in our hearts. Wherever we go, we’ll carry these struggles with us. 

When we recognize our escapist tendencies, we can bring them to God. Asking Him to satisfy our longing for relief will bring a new sense of contentment.

6. Pain increases our love for the Word.

During good times, it’s easy to live at a pace that leaves little room for God. Our well-intentioned Bible reading habits fall by the wayside. We become complacent amid modern-day distractions and entertainment.

Pain wakes us up, making us pay attention. It drives us back to the Word, where God speaks and reveals Himself to us. C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

The more time we spend meditating on the Bible during our trials, the more He’ll open our eyes to its spiritual truths. The more love He’ll give us for His Word.

Psalm 119 says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word” (v. 67). It also says, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (v. 71).

RELATED: From Duty to Delight: How to Actually Enjoy Reading the Bible

7. Pain makes God’s Word a lived reality.

We often experience the realities of God’s promises during our darkest times. They’re no longer abstract concepts that happen to people in the Bible or to other Christians. This firsthand experience increases our faith and trust in Him. 

When we’re in dire need, we witness God coming through with provision just in time. When we’re bone-weary, He gives us the unexplainable strength to keep going. In the pit of despair, God gives us timely encouragement to give us hope. 

We’re reminded of the miracle of God’s forgiveness when we’re cracking under the weight of sin. After a season of suffering, we might see that He worked our circumstances for good (Romans 8:28). We “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:8).

8. Pain changes our perspective.

Whenever devastating pain hits, it shatters any illusion that this world is home. Distractions become insignificant and meaningless. We start to long for a perfect world where all is as it should be. We place our hopes in eternity instead.

This is what the apostle Paul meant when he says that we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).

Heaven gives us a hope that won’t disappoint. It’s everything we yearn for life to be, and so much more. This eternal hope gives us the strength to withstand today’s trials. 

9. Pain equips us to love and serve others. 

Many times, the purpose of pain is to give us more purpose. Perhaps you’ve been praying for direction in your life. Pain humbles us so that we have more compassion for those who are suffering. It puts us in a unique position to relate to and encourage others going through similar circumstances.

The apostle Paul writes, “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). 

Don’t let this season go to waste. Rather than turning inward with self-pity, look out for anyone God places in your path. You don’t have to be out of your trial, either. Blessing others will help you feel better today. 

Brought Forth as Gold

Even if you can’t see it right now, your pain has a purpose. God won’t waste this season in your life, no matter how long or dark it is. If you lean into Him, you won’t be the same person when it’s over.

That’s bad news for the functional atheist in us—but good news for you and me.

In what ways are you a functional atheist? How might God be using your pain to change you for the better?

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Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash