Forget the Pain

 CS Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain said, "But pain insists upon being attended to. 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 problem I thought of is that today we have Tylenol and Advil, not to mention a host of other things to help us forget our pain. We have a struggling marriage but that's okay we have the pain reliever called divorce. We are facing hardship at work or at home but instead of dealing with it, we grab the pain reliever called alcohol.  People face trouble in their finances because they don't save, overspend, or both and we have the pain reliever of government bailouts, bankruptcy, and credit cards. 

Yes, I realize there are problems we don't cause ourselves and we do need the help of God and others to pull us through. This also isn't an excuse to not reach out in compassion. However, there are times the most compassionate thing we can do is to let someone suffer until they reach out to the one who can help with all our pain, Jesus. 

Don't look at others, but look at yourself. Is the pain you are facing a result of something that needs to be attended to by you or by surrendering to God? Then don't try and forget the pain or cover it, deal with it. It's probably time to wake up to the reality God is trying to show us.