What meaning can there be to pain?
After all this, we might wonder: so if those are the causes of bad things in our world, what can we do? Just bear with it or can there be any positive side to it? Well, pain has a meaning for the development and growth of our inner-self. But Christians know an ultimate meaning of pain and evil through the revelation. Christians can go further.
There�s a saying that goes: �Pain is the touchstone of Love�. It means that pain is good to prove the quality of true love. But it is not only good for proving it; pain might be necessary for love to mature. True love requires fortitude; it gives itself with all the strength of the soul. And it may be that this strength is very little and therefore, that this love is of �low quality�. In effect, we must distinguish between true love, which can endure whatever it must face, and a passing fantasy, which fails at the first difficulty.
To understand this, we might think of normal physical training. The only way to become better is to force the muscles in the body to exercise, forcing them little by little, so that the effort brings greater physical strength. So it happens with the soul. Our ability to love is in direct proportion with our �soul strength�. And when difficulty and tests come, if the soul replies correctly, it will grow stronger. To grow we need to use all our strength. That strength is only needed when adversity comes.
The same happens to our lungs, for example. When we merely walk around, we only use a little of their capacity, in turn, when we run, we need to use them to the max; otherwise we choke. A smoker might realize this quickly while running: soon he is out of breath. We only realize in what bad shape we are when we make a serious effort. To grow in physical form, we have to use our resources to the maximum of their ability. In the same way, to grow internally, the will needs strength. And deep pain is felt when it hurts to love. This way the pain, in whatever form it may come, is necessary to reach internal maturity. Someone who avoids even the slightest shade of pain or difficulty remains frail, helpless or cowardly within and, not unlike the smoker who loses his breath, will quickly lose hope.
What is the �supernatural� meaning of pain?
God has given a positive sense to suffering, even to the humanly incomprehensive, when he saved us through pain. The very death of Jesus, the pain that he felt in his own flesh, becomes the instrument of redemption and salvation for all men. From this moment, the suffering of all mankind becomes an instrument of redemption and salvation.It wasn�t necessary for God to suffer and die at the Cross to save us, or so say theologists. It was enough with his becoming man pay the debt of sin. Then, why did Jesus suffer the way he did? Among other things, because it gave suffering, even pain and death, a whole new meaning.
Once sin was brought to this world, pain, sickness, and death became unavoidable. Given that pain and death could not keep from being present in this world, the only positive side to many of the sufferings in this world is absolutely supernatural: believe they are ways that help obtain redemption and salvation.
That is why, although it wasn�t necessary that he suffer and die to save us, he wants to do it that way, so that, from that moment on, pain and death would be related to salvation and redemption. All those who suffer and die, if they do not rebel against him, are helping him redeem the world and save the soul of others, aside from their own.
If there are miracles, why doesn�t God perform them constantly and with them, avoid all suffering?
C.S. Lewis explains it well: �One of the strongest convictions of Christian faith is believing in the power that God has (exerted only on some occasions) of modifying the behavior of matter and realize what is referred to as a miracle. However, the very reality of a common and ordinary world asks that these occasions be extraordinarily infrequent.In a chess game, we can allow certain concessions to our adversary that changes the rules a little bit. This would hold a certain similarity to the miracles of our world and the laws of nature. We can �give away� one of our playing pieces or allow him to repeat a certain move and correct something he may have overlooked. But if we allowed him to do this constantly, if he could repeat all the movements he wanted or if we had to let our pieces simply get taken, there would be no meaning in referring to it as a chess game�.
(Editor)
It is my belief that God, with his providence, in this reality, already gives us many, many things that we, because of our simple human nature, take for granted constantly. If our reality involved a God who provided for us with miracles much more frequently that what we know, it would be likely that our faith wouldn�t be very influenced in him more than it is already. Our nature is not to be easily satisfied, even if it is through God himself.
