I was recently invited to speak at Powerhouse Church in Chennai and felt the Lord telling me that pain was to be my topic of choice.

Pain is one of those things I can speak volumes about, having lived with both physical and emotional pain for many years now.

As a child, I tended to be sickly, regularly getting sore throats, fevers and so on. As a teenager, I began to experience migraines that progressed in their severity as the years passed. My twenties saw the first signs of Endometriosis began to show, but it was a new disease, with no treatment and even the Doctors had no idea how to help. By the time I reached my thirties, physical pain and suffering was a regular occurrence and I stepped into my forties having had two surgeries and another medical procedure as part of my treatment.

Pain is the loneliest place to live in, if you believe you are alone and don’t know that the Holy Spirit is by your side.

Quantifying Pain

The Britanicca tells us that pain is defined as a complex experience consisting of a physiological and a psychological response to harmful or unspleasant stimulus. A warning mechanism that protects us by influencing us to withdraw from the harm.

Interestingly, a human can feel pain as early as 12 weeks (3 months) into its development as a foetus.

Pain is the loneliest place to live in,
if you believe you are alone and
don’t know that the Holy Spirit is
by your side.

Studies say that how much pain a person can tolerate is subjective and difficult to quantify. Individual pain responses are learned in early childhood and are affected by social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and genetic factors, among others.

Athletes, for example, may be able to withstand or ignore pain while engaged in a sport, while a paper cut might cause significant distress to another.

Kinds Of Pain

Pain has many classifications, but I found this one to be an easy way to understand the types:

Physical pain could be muscle pain, pain from disease, physical violence, etc. Emotional pain could be the pain of  betrayal. Temporary pain is something we might feel when we eat chilli hot food. Imaginary pain is when I’m dieting and can’t eat sweets but have to watch others eat sweets. Self-inflicted pain is when I wonder what waxing feels like and then try it!

It could be said that pain is not a foreign concept to you, me or anyone in this world for that matter.

Why do we experience pain?

We experience pain and suffering because we live in a fallen world where we struggle with sin on a daily basis.

Heartache, natural disasters, staggering losses, injustice, inhumanity, falsehood, discord and trouble are just some of the different kinds of pain and struggles we experience.

This was not God’s original plan for humanity, but we fell from our original position in the Garden of Eden.

Romans 8:22

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (NIV)

When sin entered the world, death entered too. Chronic pain, illness, and disease are also a form of death. It’s a harsh reality.

What The Bible Says About Pain

We know from the Bible that Jesus was persecuted and suffered disrespect, rejection, harsh treatment, slander, and other injustices. Paul also suffered similarly. In fact, both were killed despite being kind, loving, and self-sacrificing.

So, looking back at Romans 8:22, the suffering we endure is not unique to ourselves; in fact, your cry and mine are voices in the symphony of creation that is groaning and awaiting the redemption of our bodies.

Looking For Answers in Pain

When we are going through intense pain, we desperately seek a remedy or a treatment. Have you ever knocked your elbow on something hard and grabbed a hold of it to stifle the pain? A way to reduce or distract us from what we are feeling.

Answers to pain could be anything from medication to an act of kindness that restores our faith in humanity, a kind word that stops an argument, a shoulder to cry on when all seems hopeless, etc.

But, there’s one other remedy, which often may not be the first thing we think of.

A couple of years ago, I shared my story and revelation from Jesus that brought me a new perspective on how I understood pain. It gave me a renewed hope and left me amazed!

It is Finished

“It is finished”, the words that brought to completion the mission of Jesus Christ on this earth. He was minutes away from dying, and the pain and agony he felt must have been unimaginable, yet He gathers the strength to speak these last words.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:30 NIV

Traditionally we hear this as part of the Good Friday message and I’d never really given these words much thought beyond that, but the revelation had changed that.

Here are three things I learned.

It Is Finished – The Cry of Victory

“It is finished” is the English translation of the Greek word Tetelestai, which was the last thing Jesus said before dying on the cross. Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means ‘to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish’.

It’s the word you would use on completion of scaling Mount Everest; it’s the word you would use when you turn in the final copy of the book you wrote; it’s the word you would use when you make the final payment on your home loan. The word means more than just “I survived.” It means “I did exactly what I set out to do.”

Tetelestai speaks of an action which has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present and future.

When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he meant “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present, and it will remain finished in the future.”

Please note that He did not say, “I am finished,” for that would mean that he died defeated.

Tetelestai then, is the Savior’s final cry of victory. When he died, he left no unfinished business behind. His finished work includes our pain and suffering and the act of dying on the cross for us signifies the end of it.

So, in our pain, we get to cry out with Jesus in victory – knowing that it is finished, believing it, and receiving it.

It Is Finished – The Gospel In A Single Phrase

“It is finished.” It is the revelation of Christ.

This was not the sad cry of a helpless martyr; it was not an expression of relief at the end of His sufferings. No, it was the declaration on the part of Jesus, the one who saves, that all for which He came from heaven to earth to do, was now done. It revealed the Son of God who came to Earth on a mission.

When Jesus uttered these words, he could say them confidently because three things were finished by his death on the cross:

1. The prophecies of Scripture had been completed
2. The judgment of sin was complete
3. The forgiveness of sin was made available through the shedding of blood once and for all

Isaiah wrote about this, 7 centuries before they occurred, in Isaiah 53:5-12 MSG. I recommend reading these verses to better understand what I mean.

Salvation in Christ is not based on a whim or accident. God designed it, and did it, and it pleased him to do it. It pleased him to take all our sickness, sin, disease, pain on the cross. It is part of the rescue plan of Jesus and the revelation of himself as saviour of all. He is the answer, and we find this in the words – it is finished.

It Is Finished – The Remedy

Many years ago, my mum-in-love gave me a book called, Praying God’s Word by Dr. Hazel Hill. It’s a book of Bible based prayer and confessions that has helped me so much when I was in pain and couldn’t think straight enough to pray or look for encouragement in the Bible.

The book contains prayers for all kinds of situations. In the healing prayers section, the author says, and I quote:

“Exodus 15:26 says, “I am the Lord who heals you.” Jesus is our great physician, and He gives us a prescription for healing. A regular medical doctor also hands out prescriptions and we diligently have them filled, pay lots of money and faithfully take them as directed on the label and give them weeks to work. Let’s do the same with God’s medicine.”

Excerpt from Praying God’s Word by Dr. Hazel Hill

So, what’s the treatment or remedy for the pain and suffering we go through? Whats the prescription that Doctor God has given?

Romans 8:26-28 says, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

We get to take the help of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 10:8-11 says, “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

We get to declare the Word of God and access it’s power.

These are all part of the remedy, the prescription for our pain.

I would like to end by sharing with you some of my favourite prescriptions:

These verses are some of my daily medicine. As a child of God, saved by Jesus, this is my benefit. This is your benefit too!

As I declare them, not just when I’m in pain, but everyday, something wonderful happens in me, in you.

Let’s take, as the Word directs us in Proverbs 4:20 – 22: consistently, faithfully applying the Word to our hearts: meditating on it, pondering on it,  reading out loud, memorizing it and giving it time to penetrate our spirits. This is how we fight through the pain!