The Body Revelation 7-Day JourneySample

Stage 2: Recognizing Your Pain

Your brain is a miraculous creation! It is the mission control center of your body, automatically regulating breathing, heart rate, and digestion, and making it possible to perform advanced functions like solving a math problem, playing soccer, or painting a watercolor.

While we’re able to do so many things because of our marvelous brains, pain and trauma can disrupt our brain structure. When this happens, it becomes nearly impossible for us to think, say, and do the right thing, especially when we are simply trying to survive and get through painful moments.

Knowing that pain happens to all of us is one thing; figuring out how to recognize our own pain is another.

When trouble comes, our brain’s instinct is to do what it’s always done to serve us and keep us safe. We must teach our brain that there’s a better way—the way of a renewed mind.

When it comes to your pain, will you keep thinking the same thoughts and following the path of least resistance, or will you take your pain and direct your thoughts toward the path of a renewed mind that leads to God’s peace, though that requires more intentional effort? Like resistance to a muscle, whatever is coming against you is there to increase your knowledge of God, His truth, and His love. It’s for these moments in life we train.

Every difficult moment offers us the opportunity to look more like Christ. The more we look like Jesus, the more the world sees Him and our Father is glorified and known. Let’s be people who trust God with our pain, who go to Him to stay loose and shake off our stress, rather than people who stay rigid and blame God for our adversity.

Peace is not the absence of tension, but the power to subdue conflict by submitting our free will—the right to think, feel, and choose whatever we want—to God’s will. When we stay with God and His Word, no matter how conflicted or confused we feel, we are subduing and keeping dominion. In God’s mysterious ways on earth, opposition can lead to something exceedingly and abundantly better than we could ever imagine.

We will encounter troubles, but we can be quick to metabolize our pain by going to God. This is how we prevent pain from having the last word and make it useful for God’s glory.