What is Important to You?

“Does anything matter more than your pain?”
I heard this question posed yesterday on a radio program.
It’s a good question because it gets at the heart how most of us live our lives. We live as if personal satisfaction and pleasure was the real purpose of living. I have come to realize in my own life that pain avoidance is not the most important thing in the world. There are bigger things in this world than my own pain.
Ask yourself this question when you are going through a difficult time. Perhaps you are ready to give up on some creative project that you recently begun. There is always a point where continuing the project becomes painful in some way. You started the project with pleasure and excitement but for some reason it has become uncomfortable and you are ready to chuck it. Ask yourself, “Is finishing the project more important than the current pain I am experiencing?” This is just one small example from an artist’s perspective. I deal with this kind of thing in my own life all the time.
The world teaches us that we should pursue pleasure over everything else. We are not people fashioned in the image of God with the purpose of giving Him glory. We are consumers who have the right to choose any new product that helps keep our pain at bay. I see this in the church world. If a church is not meeting my needs I can just go to the one down the street. I am curious though, when did the church become about meeting my needs?
The antidote to my pain is commitment to something bigger than myself. Jesus told us we would experience pain in this world “but be of good cheer,” He said, “I have overcome the world.” Jesus was committed to following His Father completely, even to death on the cross. His life was an example of one living for something bigger than himself. Now as a believer I know that because of the indwelling Holy Spirit His life is in me. I have to remember this when He gives me a vision to pursue. Like Paul I am enabled by the Spirit to “finish the course” and press on through the pain.