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Back to the article…We've all got something that hurts. A broken relationship. An old regret. A habit we can't shake. But what if the pain we've learned to live with doesn't have to stay? Let’s go! 4-min, 47-sec read.
Listen to the audio version here:
Yesterday morning in our men’s Bible study, one of the guys told us he’s having his hip replaced in two weeks. I expected him to sound the way most of us do before surgery. Nervous, on edge, dreading it. Instead, he was (almost) excited.
He talked about running again. About living without the pain he’s carried for so long. He knows the few weeks after the surgery are going to hurt, and yet he’s already decided the other side is worth it.
The Pain We Get Used To
What hit all of us around the table wasn’t his courage. It was his perspective. He’s not choosing pain over comfort. He’s trading a dull ache that never quits for a sharp pain that actually heals.
Most of us carry an ache like that. It’s probably not a hip. It’s the marriage that’s gone south, the grown son we haven’t really talked to in years, the habit we stopped fighting, the distance from God we’ve quietly decided is normal, the shame we can’t shake.
We limp around with it so long we forget we’re limping. Most of us aren’t avoiding pain. We’re just choosing the familiar kind.
My friend in Bible study has taken the hard step. He scheduled the surgery. What would it take for us to do the same?
The Morning Clint Interrupted Me
Some of you have read this story in the book. In 2015, I was in the middle of my separation and divorce, and I was hurting badly. My closest friend, Clint, was my rock. He’d take my call anytime, and every week he’d meet me for coffee at the Atlanta Bread Company and let me unload.
One morning, I was whining and complaining again, and Clint did something he hadn’t done in months. He interrupted me. “Will, I want you to stop playing the victim and blaming others for the divorce.”
Then he asked me, “Where does God want you to be more the man He’s made you to be?” Years later, that question gave this ministry its name.
I was honestly angry at Clint that morning. Blaming was the familiar pain, and I’d gotten pretty comfortable with it. Victimhood was beginning to be soothing.
What Clint was asking for was surgery. Painful, Holy Spirit-driven introspection, peeling one layer of my ugliness away at a time.
Looking back, it’s the second most important conversation I’ve ever had with another man, right behind the morning Pastor Brent shared Jesus with me. It’s shaped my life's trajectory ever since. It also sent me straight into Hebrews 12.
For the Joy Set Before Him
Look at what carried Jesus through the worst pain any man has ever faced. The writer of Hebrews puts it right at the start of chapter 12.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus didn’t endure the cross because He was tough, or because it didn’t hurt. He endured it because of what was on the other side. He saw the joy of being seated with His Father and of bringing many sons and daughters to glory (Hebrews 2:10).
Read that slowly, brother. You and I were part of the joy set before Him. He went through the cross with us on the other side.
That matters, because our endurance doesn’t earn the joy. His endurance already secured it. We don’t walk through hard things to get the Father’s love. We walk through them because we already have it, and He’s using the pain to make us more like His Son.
Healing almost always hurts first. A few verses later, the writer of Hebrews says it plainly, and it’s the verse that met me after that morning with Clint:
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
That harvest is exactly what Clint was pointing me toward. And in the next verses, the writer goes right on:
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
The chapter starts with a race and ends with a bad joint made whole. God isn’t after our pain. He’s after our healing.
What the Surgery Looks Like
For most of us, it won’t happen in an operating room. It looks like the apology we’ve rehearsed for a year and never made. It looks like telling a brother the truth about what we’ve been hiding, or obeying a prompt from the Spirit that makes no sense and could be costly.
Sometimes it’s as ordinary as getting out of bed early to meet the Father before the day starts. Sometimes it’s trusting Him when the numbers don’t add up. Each one hurts a little, and each one moves us toward walking without a limp.
My friend is trusting a surgeon he’s met a handful of times. We get to trust the One who already went to the cross for us. He’s not careless with our pain, and He doesn’t waste any of it.
The Other Side
I’m still being trained by that morning at Atlanta Bread. I’m not finished, and I still catch myself wallowing in the familiar pain. But I’ve tasted enough of the “other side” to know it’s real and worth every bit of the pain it took to get there.
In two weeks, my friend will lie down on a table and trust someone else’s hands. A few months later, he’s hoping to be running again. That’s the other side, brothers, and it’s waiting for us too.
Reflection: What’s your hip? And what would it look like to put the surgery on the calendar instead of limping through another year?
Action: Pick one “surgery” step (the apology, the confession, the conversation, the early morning) and put a date on it this week. Then tell one brother what it is and ask him to check on you, the way our Bible study will be checking on our friend.
Prayer: Ask the Father to show you the one place He wants to heal first.
Father, I’ve gotten comfortable with pain You never meant for me to carry. Show me where I need Your healing, and give me the courage to say yes. Fix my eyes on Jesus and the joy on the other side. Make me more like Him. In Jesus’ name, amen.
-Will
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