God's megaphone

C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." (The Problem of Pain, 1940).  My extra curricular activities have caused some to label me a masochist, a lover of pain.  I beg to differ, but being one who desires to never be categorised I would disagree.  Here is why; I ran 13.1 miles, not a hundred!  I climbed a steep mountain, no a ridge.  It took me all of 2 hours to get up.  It was no Kilimanjaro.  I just like to push my limits.  I sound boring!


I do not enjoy pain.  I have grown to appreciate it.  I remember some war movie guy telling the newbies,  pain is your friend, it tells you when you are dead.  I would rather feel pain than emotions.  Is pain an emotion?  


I refer to physical pain; I can take some.  Physical pain, I think makes and breaks a man.  In training for my little races it hurts.  I have run several pain filled hours, thankfully not all at the same time!  Yet in my mind I rejoice because I know the physiology of building new muscle fibres and all that.  My running pain is a good thing.  I call it exercise pain.  There is also injury pain.  It tells me when to stop lest I destroy what is not easily rebuilt.  When this comes in you are broken.  I will not go into torture.  I know nothing on the subject, but you should get the breaking part.  


Emotional pain, I have nothing.  I have tried to  run it off.  I have tried to numb it with amusement.  When I am done, when I come back 'home' it is still on the couch and filling up the room.  It too makes and breaks.  It is in moments of pain that we run to our truest nature.  The strong grit their teeth, stand and maintain, though they are beaten down they do not budge.  They may crumble and waste a little but they endure longer than others.  The weak, well...they wither, cry and die.  Though some may still walk the Earth, there are dead branches hanging off their frames, and eventually the whole will die.  They that have a Champion, the 'more than conquerors' folks, well they run to their Champion and stand in His shadow and endure forever.  


He rouses us from our lazy slumber by allowing things to bug and bite us.  That we would remember Him, stay close to Him and ever depend on Him.  It makes sense to me.  I do not like it, I wish we learned another way, but we do not.  Its like taxes!  A necessary...pain.  I do not like suffering, but I have this nugget of insight into its physiology.  


I know what I need to do.

When realms collide

The apostle Paul speaks a lot on running the race.  There is a lot of spiritual application in training for a race.  Many things I have recorded that I will not repeat.  Here is a practical report:
I ran today in pain from previous runs.  The goal was 10 miles.  I am training for 13,1 miles on my birthday.  I did not make 3.  My body just could not carry me.  I tried and tried.  My wife ran with me and I did not want her to see me quit.  I threw in the towel.  When I stopped running, I could not restart.  The hill, the whole road pummeled me today.

As I ran, I listened to the Psalms and thought of my spiritual state - in pain, discouraged and really just ready to break down.  Instead of finding comfort and encouragement in the Word, I was happy for David.  I just could not relate.  My story seemed different.  The pain of hope and desires that are not coming to fruition was too much to bear.  My body stopped and my spirit did too.  We both cried out, even to the Lord and I hope He heard.

There is so much I do not get, and I will take one day at a time.  I will be strong maybe victorious some of those days.  His strength sustains me.  There will be days when I cannot stand.  I will fall to my knees and cry like a child, as I did today.  And even then, His strength sustains me.

"I am not blameless before You.  I speak only because I believe Your Word, I shall ever approach Your throne to Your welcome, I speak to You now not as Master and Almighty Go; but as Daddy.  I am tired.  Please carry me on Your shoulders.  So much is hanging and You are silent, distant even.  You aren't doing anything.  Please, please...Help!"