Saturday, February 19, 2011

Playing Through Pain


We’ve all seen it.  Many of us have done it.  We watched Brett Favre try to get through this past season playing through multiple injuries.  We’ve watched Olympic athletes push themselves to compete, even though they were in extreme pain.  I watched, with great admiration, as well as parental concern, my two sons play football, one with a shoulder injury, and the other with a knee injury, pressing through to finish the season.  We watch, and we wonder, “Why do they do it?”

It’s the drive to succeed, to not be defeated, to finish what they started.  That determination will carry them far in life.  You know the saying, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  Life is full of obstacles.  If we haven’t developed the character to push through, defeat is imminent.  Satan will bombard us during tough times, telling us we’re done, we’re failures.  I believe this is one reason God allows us to go through tough times.

In Romans 5, Paul says “… we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope”.  James 1:2-4 tells us to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Play through the pain, and when it’s done, look back and rejoice in what God has done in you!

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