“No Pain, No Gain”

How many of you remember Betty Wright’s R&B hit, “No Pain, No Gain”? I took some of you back didn’t I 😂? Here’s a snippet of some of the lyrics:

“There was an old lady sittin' under a tree

She called me over and she said to me

"My days left here may not be long

I wouldn't waste my time tellin' you nothin' wrong

But love is a flower that needs the sun and the rain

A little bit of pleasure's worth a whole lot of pain

If you learn this secret, how to forgive

A longer and better life you'll live'

No pain, no gain (in my Betty Wright voice 🎼🎤).

Alright let me reel you back in 🤣. Betty was talking about a relationship with her man that required a lot of forgiveness and it hurt.

I’m talking about our relationship with our Heavenly Father. How many of you know that in this life we ALL will receive pain? Pain is an Equal Opportunity Employer without any type of discrimination. We will ALL experience pain. It’s how we react to the pain that determines our destiny.

(Job 14:1)

“Man born of woman

is short of days and full of trouble”.

We can allow anger and bitterness to massage our pain soothing it for a minute but never alleviating it.

Hurt people end up hurting other people and the cycle continues.

(Hebrews 12:15)

“Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many”.

Or we can deny it exists until it becomes unbearable and we then try to medicate it with addictive agents such as work, food, religion, sex, drugs, alcohol, power etc. “A little bit of pleasure brings a whole lot of pain”!

Another option is to roll our pain over to God who loves us and entreats us to share our pain with Him.

(1 Peter 5:6-7)

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your care on Him, because He cares about you”.

Pains purpose is to humble and break us. As unappealing as that sounds it’s exactly where God wants us.

(Psalms 51:17)

The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.

God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.

In reality it is hard sometimes to give God our pain because we’ve allowed it to become a frienemy that we’ve become familiar with. We’ve used it to play the blame game which absolves us from any type of responsibility for our dysfunctional (sinful) behavior. It’s always somebody else’s fault.

When we become sick and tired of being sick and tired we will walk in our spiritual authority, humble ourselves and surrender our pain to God.

And finally as the song said, “If we learn the secret how to forgive, a longer and a better life we’ll live”.

No pain, no gain!