Why Pain Is Actually A Blessing — rethink

Originally published at https://rethinknow.org on January 20, 2020.

Why does God allow pain? I mean seriously, what’s the point of pain? There has to be something more than just something we have to bear.

Our culture is both obsessed with pain and terrified of it at the same time.

We are obsessed with stories of people overcoming pain. Almost all of which contain some kind of message that the pain they encountered ended up being a blessing, something they wouldn’t trade. These stories liter our feeds on social media and are in almost every movie Hollywood makes.

In contrast, in our personal lives, we can’t stand even the smallest pain. Pain is our enemy. At the first sign of a headache, we pop a few Tylenol. When we encounter a difficult, or painful, situation our first reaction often is to run. We avoid pain at all costs.

The lives we live are a starch contrast to the stories we are drawn too. Maybe we are thinking about pain in the wrong light.

So, why does God allow pain? Is it possible that He using pain for our good?

The Difference Between Pain and Suffering

Before we go any further we need to define the difference between pain and suffering. All suffering…