Is Pain a Gift?

I heard a pastor on the radio claiming that pain is a gift. His sermon was unremarkable but this concept had been in my mind for years. Having a psychology background I had studied how we form empathy for one another and in recent years researchers discovered that autistic children do not form empathic relationships the same way that non autistic children do. When as children we fall, we cut ourselves or get sick those memories are so powerful they imprint themselves upon our minds. When empathy is fostered by parents or guardians the child recognizes pain of others through their own powerful memories of associated pain. The physical is the first to understand and then the emotional so that when people watch a movie which is fictional the empathetic reaction is the same as when it happens in real life. We cry and laugh and groan based upon our own experiences with pain. We ask the question why does God allow suffering? Since we have been given a will God doesn't make us do anything we don't already want to do. Does He manipulate events and circumstances? Absolutely. So let's say for a moment that we were God and had to determine what all suffering was and then create a plan to eliminate it with the one rule, no forcing of anyone to do it. How would you accomplish that feat? Would you send someone to warn everyone about the impeding threat of violence, war, disease or natural disaster? If you did would they accept that warning or ignore it? So maybe you do something to get their attention, for instance take out an ad in the New York Times of what was going to happen and why. Would everyone read it and believe it? In the end to persuade individuals of even greater pain would we not have to do the hardest thing which is to allow some pain to protect from the horrible pain? Many asked why the Holocaust occurred, that no merciful God could have allowed it. Very few people know that during the Black Plague in the 14th century Germany killed 200,000 Jews by burning them alive or beating them to death. It wasn't German hicks drunk one night with no idea of morality but rather passion players who incited mobs to turn on Jews in their villages after showing the story of Christ and calling for them to repent. We look at the Holocaust and see wicked men and women causing horrific acts in the name of God and country. Yet in the rest of the world even in the Jewish ghettos themselves, no one believed man was that evil. But God got the whole world's attention. Imagine for a minute if 14 million people followed 200,000, what would have occurred if the Holocaust had not existed? We think of pain and we become overwhelmed individually and collectively by its imprint. As I write this now my stones are gone but an RA flare up has put my right hip in horrible pain. Instead of the usual tantrums and sadness over the past few months I wait and see what God is protecting me from or showing me how to protect others. We have a choice to either become horribly selfish when pain happens to us and believe the world owes us for that suffering or we kick in those empathetic muscles and decide to unselfishly try and remove the suffering of others. Christ when He looked out over Jerusalem was grieved by what He saw. His solution endure physical pain to elevate pain. We live in a society that avoids pain at any cost and the church has even embraced this philosophy. We pray for the elevation of pain that requires no pain from us and all God's intervention. Paul used two Greek words for prayer one was deomai which meant to make one's needs known and to ask for intercession for those needs. This was not for God alone but for the church so that the church would be motivated by the Spirit to meet those needs. We may not be able to heal the sick but we can come along side someone, cook them a meal, simply be a friend. Instead we pray that it goes away because we think that is what's best, and never stop to imagine how we can contribute to reducing another individual's pain. When it doesn't go away I've seen people avoid, treat others differently, and futilely keep praying for relief that isn't coming. If we don't start believing that ending suffering begins with our own personal faith journey then we will be no better than the lost who asks why if there is a God isn't He stopping the suffering?