Running Along the Path

My Pastor is going through the book of Job for the next few weeks. This past Sunday was our jump-start into the passage, and if it was any indication, this is going to be an exhausting, convicting yet exhilarating ride. I was crying 5 minutes in and then sniffling throughout the rest of the message.

To go along with the weekly sermons, Pastor Mark recommended 3 books we could select about pain and suffering. I struggled to pick just one, but I did. I had read another book of Philip Yancey's, and so I thought I'd try another one by him: Where Is God When It Hurts?

Every morning this week I've been reading a chapter and learning a great deal more about pain and how useful it can be in our lives. Today I was particularly struck with these few lines which go right along with my blog from last night:

*I think of a world without another pain, the pain of loneliness. Would friendship and love even exist apart from our inbuilt sense of need, the prod that keeps us all from being hermits? Do we not need the power of loneliness to pry us away from isolation and push us toward others?*

Isn't that good? I think I picked the right book.

It is true that we need pain to get us moving sometimes. Like this morning in Indiana, it is -6 degrees right now and with the wind chill factor, it feels like -18 degrees. Brrrrrrr.... I was so cold driving into work that I put on a second pair of gloves mid-transit and kept slapping my hands together so that I could feel something. Hey, how long does it takes for frostbite to happen? I wonder. I suppose to an outsider it would have appeared that I was clapping along on my drive. Yep, that's me--I like to do quick little cheers on my morning commute to help get me going. HA!

Then after parking my car as close as I could to the building, I ran from my car to the door, praying the entire way that I would not fall flat on my face along the slick path. Yes, like a 5-year-old expecting hot cocoa and cookies after playing in the snow, I ran inside just so I could get warm. But without the sensation of pain, I wouldn't have sensed the urgency to move, to get out of the cold. The pain protected me from foolishness.

So to without the pangs of loneliness, I wouldn't sense the need to mingle and interact with my fellow image-bearers. The pain is stimulating me into action and pushing me to get out of my head and merge into the lives all around me, and that is right where GOD wants me.

*Taken from Philip Yancey's book, Where Is God When It Hurts?, chapter 4, page 56