Why So Much PAIN? #10

Hosts Dan, Terry, and Brian discuss Why is there so much pain in life...

They will help you live your life with purpose, change someone’s life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Everyone starts the race... but only the Fearless Finish Strong!
 
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Transcript

Brian Roland: 0:04

Even though she was in pain and going through suffering herself, that's what she did. And the Lord bless her. She was always healed and sent back home and then something happened again. I don't know, somebody's got to pray for and she go back in and but we get stronger, we get firm and steadfast.

John Matarazzo: 0:20

Live your life with purpose change someone's life for the better, and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Welcome to finish strong the podcast designed to help you discover your unique purpose and develop a plan to leave a powerful legacy. In this episode, Dan, Bryan and Terry answered the question, why is there so much pain in life? Here's Dan. So let's get started.

Dan Wheeler: 0:43

Everyone goes through hard times in life. No one escapes pain. I don't care how much money you have, how famous you are. There are problems that we all face, and no one has the perfect life. One of my favorite quotes was by CS Lewis, he says God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Sometimes God gets ahold of us and gets our attention because of pain. So the title of this episode is why is there so much pain in life? And I'm joined by Brian Rowland, Terry Steen. I'm Dan Wheeler, our producer, John Matarazzo is here and we're going to talk about this in depth. Terry, I hear from people all the time. I'm a Christian, why do I have so much pain in my life?

Terry Steen: 1:40

Yeah, and I'm sure we could all just non agreement, can't we be true, it does happen. And that's one of the things we'll be talking about as we as we move forward into this. But you know where it all started, we've all heard the story. Adam and Eve, we live in a fallen world in sin entered and I have to say he probably got a bad rap. Because if it wouldn't have been her somewhere down the road, humans are just so frail. But devil is so tempting. And if you read in the second, the third chapter of Genesis, it tells us story how God gave him the one tree not to eat from and then Satan told his lies and Eve saw how good the tree looked. And it was pleasing and desirable. And the rest is history.

Dan Wheeler: 2:30

We all have different sources of pain. I feel like in my home life, some of the greatest pain I had, and I experienced was self inflicted. I mean, you know, just getting away from God getting out, living life my way doing it. on my own. You know that song I did it my way. The Bible says there's a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end there of his destruction, and death. And we've, you know, we've got to go God's way. So it can be self inflicted. I know others can inflict pain, sometimes they can say very hurtful things. They cannot be supportive when we're going through difficult times. Sometimes you feel like your friends turn on you. I've been meaning to talk to you about that day and wait till afterwards.

Brian Roland: 3:20

We gotta go now.

Dan Wheeler: 3:21

Oh, okay. Thanks, guys. I appreciate you always staying with me. See, I can count on these guys. They're gonna go have a cup of coffee. Of course, as you mentioned, you know, St. And his temptations can lead you down a very painful road and he causes pain. But if you ever thought, Does God cause pain? Have you ever asked that question? I think there's a couple verses in john chapter nine, that are kind of surprising. I was reading this the other day. It says, I'm reading from the King James Version. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him saying, Master who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind. And Jesus answered, neither half this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. And then Jesus goes on to heal him. He puts some mud on his eyes and he healed the blind man brought his sight back. So God was glorified. But it seems as if God allowed that to happen, so that Jesus could heal him and bring glory to God. So, I mean, that's something to consider that when we're going through things or going through pain, ultimately, maybe it'll be for God's glory. And I think about my own life and going through the loss of bath and yet that was what spurred the start of fearless faith ministries and the creation of it. And here we are guys, five years down the road now and we do our videos on Facebook every day. We call them your morning cup of inspiration. We've written a devotional, I've written the book about Beth and our journey. We've got an Instagram page. That's going great. And here we are doing a podcast and this is our 10th episode. So Brian, as Christians, we're not exempt from pain are we?

Brian Roland: 5:17

Ah, No, a lot of people would like to say that, well, I'm a Christian, I come like I keep suffering, or I'm going through this. And this is as true as ever gonna go away. Yeah, it does go away. But the thing is, is that you're not exempt from pain and being a Christian. And I think what people don't realize is when you go through trials and have pain, you come out stronger on the other end, and use for example, when you're working out and you're breaking down muscle, and it hurts, but what happens it gets stronger, because you've broken that down, and you've come out at the other end, stronger than when you went into it. Paul was talking to the to the church, and he wrote the letter, I urge you, therefore to reaffirm your love for him. This is second Corinthians two, eight through nine. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient, everything. They were going through trials, they had pain. And he wanted to make sure that they were strong and staying strong, and standings are staying strong through the test because they were going to come out stronger on the other end of it. And the thing we have to remember is that Satan, he's going to and fro throughout the world here, and it says there in First Peter five, eight, Be alert and of sober mind, your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. So there's gonna be pain inflicted, we're not, we're not exempt from it. But we're Christians, but we have what we need to put up the defense, and to get ourselves through that to come out stronger in the end.

Dan Wheeler: 6:45

And boy, it seems like as a country, we're going through a lot of pain right now. And that's a good point that we do grow through pain. And I think our faith grows through pain. A lot of it is our attitude towards what we're going through.

Terry Steen: 7:03

Yeah, I think if we could come to grips with what Brian was just talking about, then we could accept what the Bible tells us to do, which is basically to be joyful. to count it all joy, I know in First Peter is says rejoice in suffering. So so we can be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. Part of its looking long term, part of it's looking at the internal rewards that we get from the pain that we go through. And if we can do it in rejoicing, one of the greatest scriptures on this whole topic is James one. And it's a second through multiple verses. But let me just read the second verse. Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, I'm not gonna spoil the surprise on why we're supposed to do that. That'll come out as we continue talking here. But we're supposed to count it all joy. I know, in Proverbs, it says that if we falter in times of trouble, how small is our strength? Or how small is our faith? So it's kind of our faith report card, the attitude we have about the pain

Dan Wheeler: 8:19

and it's hard to do, it's very hard to count it in her life, all joy and think of looking at pain and suffering in that way, especially when we're anxious. And we want the answers. And there are times when we're going through very difficult things when we feel like God is silent. Have you ever felt like you're praying, you're praying like, okay, God, where are you now give me some direction. But his silence doesn't necessarily mean that he's not working, that he's not working behind the scenes on your behalf. I think of the story of Joseph in Genesis, chapters 37 through 45. I mean, Joseph was a big deal. He got eight chapters worth but you think of what happened to him, you know, when his brothers saw them coming, and they were jealous of them, because his dad had given him a coat of many colors. And Joseph, it seemed like he was bragging a little bit about some of his dreams, and they didn't like him. And they threw him in a pit. And God didn't necessarily reveal his plan to them. We don't read that. God was communicating with Joseph through that. And then he was, you know, they sold him. And then he ended up with working for Potiphar, a leader and he was in charge of potter's house. And then Potiphar his wife came after Joseph and Joseph rejected her and fled from her and she grabbed his code, and she falsely accused him of coming on to her and so Potiphar had no choice. He had to put Joseph in prison. And still, you know, Joseph wasn't given the plan out of that one. And then there were two In prison who had dreams, the Butler and the baker and Joseph interpreted the dream, and the Baker was killed and the butler was restored. And he said to the Butler, don't forget about me here in prison, but the butler forgot about him. And then finally, Pharaoh had a dream, and he needed someone. And then the butler remember, Joseph, but you think of all the years, Joseph was kind of an exile there and in prison and things not going well. And then when he interpreted the dream for Pharaoh, God helped him, he lifted him up, put him second in charge of all of Egypt. And then he was able to help his family, he was restored with his family. But you know, I'm sure there were many times when Joseph said, Lord, I've been faithful to you What in the world is going on?

Terry Steen: 10:46

And it finally hit him, that what his brothers did to him, God meant for good. And if we can only fight through those same things that we face in our life, and get to the point where it finally hits us. Ah, this is why I've been going through that.

Dan Wheeler: 11:06

Yeah. And Brian, you told me a story the other day about some wires and a technical setup.

Brian Roland: 11:12

Yeah, you know, and it sort of reminds me of when we're, when we're praying, we're going God, where are you, we don't realize that he's working behind the scenes all the time. And and what I use as an example is, if you ever been in a tech room, in a recording studio, or in an IT room, or behind the computer, hard drives, net, you see wires going everywhere. And if you've never done that, just look behind your television set, I mean, everything that's going in and out of your screen, and of your DVR and everything else. I mean, there's so many wires going and without one in place, it's it's not going to work. And this is what's happening with God works behind the scenes, he has things going everywhere. And we don't know the time and place or when it's going to work, but he has it plugged in when it's supposed to be plugged in. So I look at it that way. When I'm praying saying Lord, I know that you're behind the scenes working on all this right now. And if we do that, we know that he has our best interest, and it's gonna be done according to His will.

Dan Wheeler: 12:08

I often think that pain and adversity, tough circumstances keep me close to the Lord keeps me on my knees. I mean, it's like that quote, I read from CS Lewis, you know, when things are going great, says, you know, God whispers to us in our pleasures, like, okay, don't forget about me. Right? But then he speaks in our contents. We hear him talking to us on what's right, what's wrong. But he shouts in our pain. And really, I like the, the analogy, CS Lewis said, he said, It's his megaphone to rouse the deaf world.

Terry Steen: 12:46

Will you even think back to the Old Testament, the children of Israel out in the wilderness, they, I mean, they're in the wilderness all those years, but yet it was serving a purpose. They had to grow, they had to understand they had to learn to be obedient to God, before he felt they were ready to go in and take the promised land. So every journey has its purpose,

Dan Wheeler: 13:10

really does. em. But there's things that we can expect. If we handle the pain and the adversity properly. Brian, would you speak to that?

Brian Roland: 13:21

You know, I'll give you a right out of the Bible. It says in First Peter 510, and the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. So what can we expect we can expect to become strong and firm and steadfast when we come out of this? And I look at that when my mom was in the hospital, she'd be in there. And I'd say, Mom, what are you going in for now she goes, I don't know. There's somebody I need to pray for. I mean, she would be in there. And as soon as she can get out of bed, she'd walk down room, the room the room and pray for these different people, even though she was in pain and going through suffering herself. But that's what she did. And the Lord bless her, she was always healed and was sent back home. And then something happened again, I don't know why somebody's got to pray for and she go back in, but we get stronger. And and they said he gives a straw it makes a strong, will get firm and steadfast. And one analogy I'd used to that was when I had broken my leg. And one of the many times I've broken my legs. I was looking at the the X ray with the doctor and the tip of the bone, the top bone on your shin, or had broken, it looked like there was a knot around almost like a ratchet wrench, you know, that you put on the end of a wrench wrench and it was a big knob on it. And I says, Doc, what's that? And he goes, Well, that's where the bone was broke. And I saw that side. He goes, Oh, no, he goes, that bone is stronger now than it was when you broke it. And that's what happened after the break it healed even stronger. And that's what happens when we have the pain and that when we're broken. We come back stronger because God does does that for us. And it says that right there and First Peter 5:10

Dan Wheeler: 14:59

Yeah. It seems like sometimes God is waiting to see how we will handle it. And will we stay consistent and steadfast? You know, it's sometimes it's easy to, you know, proclaim your faith in the Lord when everything's going great. And it's not so easy when things aren't going your way.

Terry Steen: 15:21

Well, that's true. That's so true that you talked about steadfastness. And you bring up James, coming back to that first chapter, the second through the fourth verse that says, because you, here's where I was reading that, Consider it pure joy when you face those trials, because you know that the testing of the faith develops perseverance. and perseverance has to finish its work so that we can be mature and complete, and not lacking anything. So that's all part of developing the faith learning to persevere. So we can be mature and be what Christ wants us to be. There's no better example than Paul, when you think about that. And we think if I ask each of you guys to list the top five things that you feel, are creating pain in your life, you think about those and then compare them to this list. I went and looked up the list of what Paul went through. I found it in Second Corinthians. He was in prison, he was flogged five times he was whipped 40 times minus one he was beaten with rods three times he was shipwrecked three times, he spent a night in the open sea. He faced all types of dangers, no sleep, hunger, thirst, cold, you have all that, and then listen to what he says, In Philippians, the fourth chapter in the 11th verse, And he says, I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances, and those were his circumstances, I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have plenty. And he said, I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want, I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. we as Christians now think our country is giving us the raw deal. And Christians are being treated so poorly, and they're all coming against us. And life is so hard. Hey, let's think about it for a minute right.

Dan Wheeler: 17:42

Now, wait a minute, Terry. This morning, I was having some trouble getting my bluetooth speaker to work, and it must have taken me three minutes. So you're telling me that's not much. I

Terry Steen: 17:51

didn't realize it was three,

Unknown: 17:53

three. Yeah.

Terry Steen: 18:00

Isn't that the truth, though? The things that we feel are painful. Let's put them in perspective. Right?

Dan Wheeler: 18:07

Yeah. Well, you know, a guy that doesn't have any problems, never faces any adversities is our producer John Matarazzo, I mean, the guy, okay, today, we had a few technical testing.

John Matarazzo: 18:21

Just a few.

Dan Wheeler: 18:21

JOHN, what are some lessons you've learned from adversity in your life? Have you had any adversity?

John Matarazzo: 18:29

I've definitely had some adversity. And as actually, as Brian was talking about the broken legs that he had, I actually broke my leg when I was 14. And like, I didn't cry at all whenever that first happened. But so I had a cast all the way from my foot up to my thigh, like and I couldn't bend it, it was a huge cast. And I ended up getting a paper cut. And I screamed out and I got, I had more pain from that paper cut. And I had my mom and sister Look at me, like you just broke your leg. Why are you you had he didn't cry for that at all, but you're crying over a paper cut. And it helped me put things in perspective. I'm like, you know what, this paper cut? That's not that big of a deal. And so but the lake didn't hurt in the braking process, but then it fused back together, as Brian was saying, and now it's stronger. That was where the pain came. But without that pain, it wouldn't be stronger. Right? I've learned a lot from that. But you know, just putting it in perspective that papercut might feel sharp, but in a moment, that's not really that big of a deal. And so we got to just make sure that we're paying attention to where the pain actually is coming from and deal with it appropriately.

Dan Wheeler: 19:36

On Finish Strong, on this podcast, we always like as we approach the end of the podcast to kind of talk about growing stronger through pain and adversity. How do we do that? You know, I when I think back to Beth's long illness, and even before that, I had gone through an extremely difficult time personally and Again, it was self inflicted. But it got so bad that I just I couldn't see up. And when I finally came through that, and the Lord just revealed Himself to me, I was ready then to face what I was about to face, which I had no idea what was coming in the fall. And that was, that's cancer. And I often think that's for some reason, I had to go through that to get ready to be strong enough, you know, there's a process with gold where they filter out, the heat it up, they put it in the crucible, and they melt away all the impurities. And sometimes that's what it feels like, you know, Brian, it feels like, God's got you in that crucible. And there's no way out. But he's, he's actually working in those situations and purifying us

Brian Roland: 20:52

He is. And that is what the point is what I was using, the description of the wires, it's the stuff that he is setting us up for and getting us ready for, and we don't know what it is, but it's got a divine purpose, and it's going to be for His glory. And if we let him work through us that way, we can know that everything we go through and every pain and every trial that we go through, it's for His glory, and that he is going to show us in the end, and we're going to come out stronger.

Dan Wheeler: 21:21

Yeah, it's kind of like, you've probably heard the story of, you know, the caterpillar and how the caterpillar weaves its cocoon, and then tries to cast to break through that cocoon to be a butterfly, and about the guy that thought he was going to help the butterfly out. So we just pulled him out, didn't want him to have to go through all that. And then the butterfly couldn't fly, he'd actually ruined him. Because God made the butterfly. That way, it had to break through the cocoon on its own. So that's wings became stronger. And I feel like that's often what he does with us.

Brian Roland: 21:53

That's good. That's a good one, Dan.

Terry Steen: 21:55

so true. And you know, God did that specifically for Paul, I think, if you'll remember he had a thorn in his flesh. We don't know what that was. But there was something that was afflicting him. And he asked the Lord three times to have it removed, and the Lord would not remove it. But here's the statement that he made. He said, My grace is sufficient for you. Said for my power is made perfect in weakness. And if we can grasp that, that his grace is there for us, in his power makes us perfect. When we're weak. It's it's that gift from God, but it's so hard to consider these things in our life is gifts.

Dan Wheeler: 22:43

I know that there's people listening to us right now that are going through a hard time and you just can't see the way out. And I'd like to pray for those people right now. Dear Heavenly Father, we all have pain. We all have adversity, it's just a fact of life. But it's how we handle it. It's our attitude towards it. And it's where do we run, and we run to you, Lord. And I pray that every person that's listening to this and is saying, boy, I'm just at the end of my rope, I just don't see a way out. The pain is too great. I just don't want to go on. Well, Lord, I pray that you would touch them. If you would just minister to them, help them to know there is so much hope in you and that you have not forsaken them. That to have a plan for their life, and plans to prosper them and not to harm them. And Lord, we're we're all kind of hurting right now. Here in America, we're seeing all of the problems our country faces and all of the discord and downright almost hatred and, and just people Americans not getting along with each other and just, it feels like we're so divided, and Lord, the only one that can save us and pull us through this as you try. So we just lift our nation, and we lift our leaders up to you and I pray that they would all turn to you and find you and that there would be a great and mighty outpouring of your Holy Spirit. We love you, Lord. And I pray that you'll help us all to finish strong when we've gone through adversity, to make our lives count for you. And we ask it all in the name. Amen. Guys, another great discussion. Good stuff on pain and adversity. You know, john, something that would ease our pain of is that people would rate this podcast and maybe give us five stars.

John Matarazzo: 24:48

Absolutely. Go to your favorite place that you're listening to podcasts, especially especially Apple podcast, and and rate and review. That means write what you think is valuable about this podcast and why somebody else should listen into it. That'll help more people discover finished strong by fearless faith. And that'll help this podcast grow so that more people can finish strong as well. Go to faith.org to see all of the stuff that they have to offer in a morning cup of inspiration. You can get a mug, you can get books you can get devotionals get everything right there at ffaith

Dan Wheeler: 25:21

it's all designed to help you stay close to the Lord, to stay faithful, to stay strong, and to finish strong. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for listening to us. We hope you'll tell your friends and family about our podcast and we'll see you next time God bless.

John Matarazzo: 25:42

Thank you for listening to finish strong for more information about finish strong and fearless faith. Check out their website ffaith.org mak sure that you rate and revie this podcast to help more peopl accomplish their God give purpose so that together we ca finish stron