Pain and Motivation

My daughter loves scary rides at six flags. Superman? The Titan? The Texas Giant? Mr. Freeze? Every trip, over and over. How about being hoisted up in a sling attached to a huge rubber band and dropped about 100 feet? Paid $30 bucks to do it. But I've done something that makes her turn pale to even hear about it. What was it? I laid down on a table, looked at the ceiling, and didn't blink while a man I barely knew dug in my eyeball with a huge needle. Whhaaattt??? Yep, sure did.

How much would I have to pay you to let a stranger dig in your eyeball with a huge needle? Would you do it for $10,000? How about $100,000? Not a chance? Me neither. But what if I were to tell you that not only didn't I get paid, I paid over a hundred bucks for the experience.

Let me explain...You see, I got a splinter in my eye. Don't know where it came from, just felt something in my eye, like an eyelash, couldn't rub it out so went to a mirror and there, sticking out of the Iris [colored part] of my eye was a splinter. OUCH! Actually, it didn't hurt a lot except when I blinked [try not blinking for a while...I tried and tried, it just can't be done]. With every blink, the splinter would scratch the inside of my eyelid. As I said, OUCH! After a couple of hours I ended up in a minor emergency clinic with a doctor who put some in some numbing eyedrops AAhhhhh.... Then he put me on a table, pulled out a large needle, and said "Look at the ceiling and don't blink"...excuse me? "Look at the ceiling and don't blink..." "I'm not sure I can keep from blinking" "well, you'll only blink once!" and do you know what I did? I looked at the ceiling and didn't blink!

Now that I've given you nightmares, permit me to point out the obvious. Pain = Motivation. Under normal circumstances, I would never willingly allow that to happen to me, but under these circumstances, I paid to have it happen. That is useful to know. Think about all those stories you've heard about people who have turned their lives around. Don't they usually have pain [physical, mental, or emotional] in common? "When my daughter died...", "when my husband left me and took our children...", "When I woke up in the hospital without my leg..." Pain is a very useful tool in that it gets our attention, and makes the unthinkable not only thinkable, but desirable.
The implications as far reaching.

On a personal level: when you experience pain in your life, instead of running from it, or trying to avoid it, use it as motivation to godliness. That is what the prodigal son did. He was hungry, he was lonely, and that motivated him to go home.

As a parent: Know that when you shield your child from the painful consequences of their sinful, irresponsible actions, you are removing powerful motivation for change from their life.

As a church: When we look the other way, ignoring open sin to thrive unchecked in our congregation, we allow it to spread, and give the sinner false comfort in the belief that sin doesn't matter to God or his people. When, on the contrary, the church in Corinth refused to even eat with a member who was openly embracing sin (1 Cor.5) he was overwhelmed with sorrow, repented of his sin, and returned to God.

When my heart is wise, pain is an enemy who serves me even as he seeks to destroy me.