Soul Pain

2 Corinthians 4:17, "For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comprehension."

There is a physical pain that comes from nakedness, being shelter-less, starvation, disease, and other inhumanities. These pains must be dealt with immediately by those closest, and exposed to the need. This is the lesson of the good Samaritan.

But there is a whole other kind of pain that comes with death, burial, and resurrection of the soul. There is a pain associated with surrender, which is nothing more than laying down your own ideas, abilities, and thoughts to be in absolute obedience to God regardless of effort, outcome, pleasure, or pain. This pain of the soul, this pain of having character transformed, is not something to be cured or fixed by the outsider. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the shaping of the Potter's wheel.

Soul pain is momentary and light, though in the moment it seems insurmountable and crushing. But this pain is what forces us to confront that character in us that is not Christ. It is the pain of our soul being out of integrity with the spirit. It is the wake up call that something is wrong, and it is the ache that something is growing. Namely us as vessels of Christ. Soul pain is the stretching of the wine skin as the new wine ferments and is being prepared to be poured out.

This pain in not anyone's fault, and is not curable unless the cause, namely otherness from Christ, is uprooted from the soul and allowed to die. As George said the other day in Love Machine, "You have to feel your own pain, and get to the place you just hurt." Hurting without blame is one of the first steps to finding that joy of the soul that will either cure the pain, or allow the individual to endure it.

The point is that we as loving, caring, Christians have to learn to listen more and talk less. We have to be with people in their pain of the soul, but not rescue them. This pain is not a place for advice, because advice covers up, advice builds walls, it is man's solution to a God problem.

I might go a little farther and say that if a person does not share the same experience of the soul, advice is always the wrong thing. For example, I cannot advise the soul of a widower having never overcome that myself. I cannot advise the soul of a drug addict having never been one myself. But I can advise the soul of a childhood sexual abuse victim. I can advise the soul of the bankrupt, the divorced, the cheated on, etc. This is advice I can give because these are areas that I have an abundance of God in my heart for.

Soul pain is like birth pain. It is unavoidable. It is largely untreatable. And it will cease shortly after the birth is accomplished. Like an epidural... if treated it only prolongs the process.

So for those of you experiencing the pain deep in your soul, God will complete His work, and your pain will be looked back on as momentary light affliction.

For those who know someone giving birth in their soul... just be there, take the heat, wipe away the sweat and tears, but unless you have birthed the same thing in your soul, it is best to keep your advice to yourself. If you have birthed the same thing, then most often you will understand there is no advice that would help anyway.