Pain Has A Purpose: Don't Yield To It, Push Through It

Pray, and trust your Creator/Healer...

I'm not saying it works for everyone every time or that everyone should try it, but it has worked for me throughout my life and I believe it is generally true with everyone. In my opinion it is akin to God's first natural law for humans concerning OBEDIENCE in what they could and should not eat of, and the result of disobedience. I'll call it "The Law Of Good And Evil". And His second law, resulting from their human violation of the first law was,   "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" Gen. 3:19.   The  word "bread" here is the Hebrew word "lechem" and means food. Working for your food is a law like sowing and reaping which is another branch of God's natural laws, that is similar...   "Give and it shall be given unto you" Luke 6:38.   Meet God's conditions and these natural laws work for us every time.... in His time. The one I am referring to though is, "Push through the pain to lessen the pain".  Adam and Eve's original assignment was to   "dress and keep the garden" Gen.2:15.   That required work and using the muscles God gave us. But before sin came, there wouldn't have been any pain in kneeling, working, and pruning the garden. I assume the garden contained fruit and nut trees as well as vegetables, for their food. But after they disobeyed God's first law, concerning obedience, another law was brought into play as a consequence,   "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread". Gen.3:19.   Sweat assumes laborious, hard work  accompanied by pain in unexercised, lazy muscles. The only way to stop that kind of pain is to push through it consistently until the muscles are strong and hard and not weak and unsupportive. So pray for healing, but maybe more important is, put feet to your prayers and pray for the grace to daily exercise that old body. Don't tell me it hurts... I know that already.

There are some physically serious cases where doing so might cause physical damage, but the core truth is that most such pain can be lessened by a regimen of pushing through it. Exercising muscles, for greater strength, is useless unless it hurts. Every sport requires it. Maintaining health and preserving health for a lifetime, requires it. 

This is not only true physically but is also mentally and spiritually true...    

"... Sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith." Ecc.1:13.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Heb.12:11.

I think it is absolutely true, both physically, mentally and spiritually, that where there is no pain there is no gain. That is not a flippant axiom but a common truth.

The first time I realized this, at 16, is when my dad had me dig a cellar about 8X10 feet and 7 feet deep. When I finished it I was healthier, wealthy and much stronger just before going off to Marine Corps Boot Camp. Dad knew something I did not know and prepared me for my greatest testing up to that time.  The lesson was greatly magnified  two years later when I was put in an emotional, spiritual, and physically killing, test zone of endurance during the Chosin Reservoir battle in North Korea. We fought, agonized and died until we couldn't take another step and then fought and froze another 50 miles.... and after rest, were all stronger for it.

I'll be 88 in December, and nothing on me works right anymore. I won't name them all, but as Bunnie' s mother said forty years ago, many years before she died at 100, "Old age ain't for sissies".

Exercise, at my age, is extremely painful, if it does any good.  So I think most old people die before their  time, at least partially, for that reason ... meager physical activity. I understand it now that nearly every move is painful. Like most other old people, I hate exercise.  I have two metal knees and ex rays see my hip joints with nothing between the bones but pain. So my work-outs were drifting downward and hurting more. It finally became so bad that I went to an orthopedic surgeon to see what a Saw-bones could do for me. His diagnosis was, replace a hip joint and repair a metal knee joint. I was willing, at 88, to get it done.... live or die.

Then the unexpected happened. Many family, friends and the wonderful people I pastored, those many years in Florida, began to pray for this old preacher ... and I began to increase my time on my stationary bike ... pushing through the pain, and, as I thought, getting my old body in better shape to survive my left hip joint being sawed in two and my right knee being opened up for an overhaul. This pain has gotten steadily worse for years. You can imagine my surprise when all those prayers, plus  pushing through the pain, and just plain intervention of God, began to eliminate the pain rather quickly. Now, understand, I don't know which or what happened, but one thing I do know is, no matter which or what God used or didn't ... He has done the healing, whether by some means or miracle or both. The ex rays still show no cartilage remaining between the hip joint, and the knee joint still has metal shavings or chunks of plastic or whatever, interfering with its movement, but the pain has, and is still, subsiding.   
I have canceled the orthopedic surgeon procedure, so if the pain returns, I will let you know so you can pray for me.... and I will keep on pushing through it, praying through it and looking forward to seeing Jesus and a brand new, glorified body at the trumpet sound.  Thanks for your prayers. I love you all. God is so good. RB