Pain and Progress

My status update on Facebook caused some thinking. I started with Passion plus purpose equals progress but through pain. My friend David suggested this formula: "think you're missing something ... the impetus that gets us actually moving. i propose that (Passion + Purpose) * movement = progress - (pain / n) where n is obedience to the Word of God."

To which I countered: Passion + Purpose x Power (Holy Spirit) equals Progress...but I don't think the Pain is divided by obedience. Ask Jesus in the garden. Obedience makes pain worthwhile, but it still hurts. And I don't think pain necessarily subtracts from progress either, but often is required. Again, think of Jesus in the Garden.

Does all good progress have to be filtered by pain? I wish it were not so, but I'm not sure painless progress exists. Even happy things are fraught with the pain of change. A child walks and we rejoice, but we are also letting go of that child a little bit.

Not all pain is debilitating. And it can achieve a purpose itself, and usually does. Referencing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane again, the greatest pain ever experienced brought the greatest progress ever made, victory over sin and death. Well worthwhile pain.

Some pain seems pointless. In the middle of suffering we often can't see past the tears on our pillow. But the same God who never misses a tear drop does not allow those tears to fall to the ground without refining our character, the salt in those very tears etching away at our selfishness, our pride, our resistance to God's ultimate purposes.

O Lord, that it would not be so, that we could walk the upward way without pain, but thank You that You go with us as we travel, and that every pain we feel in our steps forward You sense the echoes of from centuries ago. We walk no path that You have not already trod.

God does seem to allow us seasons without suffering. We rest and recuperate. But I can't say we are making much progress in those times. So at some point, we reenter the fray, if we really want to live, and not just mark time.

As I write this, I wonder if I have a warped view of life. This has been my experience, living on the front lines as I do, which is why Roger and I choose comedies when we watch a movie, too much pain in the real life we experience. That doesn't mean the pain is all my own, I am grateful for the unscathed life I live, no great illness, no children in tragedy, no relational heartbreak. But I cannot watch the world around me with an unfeeling heart.

So I hurt. And I grow. It must cause some "pain" for a young plant to break out of its seed pod. And someday, we will truly break free, and finally arrive where there is no more crying or pain. And that will be real progress.