No Pain - No Gain

As you learn more about me, you will find that I have gone through such a variety of activities in my life that it may seem like I am a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” I hope that is not the case but, I can see where you could get that opinion. Two things that you may not know about me are my lessons in karate while in my early twenties, and my bout with weight lifting in my mid-thirties.

I know that every man dabbles in these things from time to time, but I really loved them. The two are so different that it probably seems like they are a paradox. Not really. Both activities have some similarities. They both develop the body; they both require dedication; and they both are misunderstood by individuals not involved in them.

There is another similarity. Both karate and weight lifting teach one common thread to success. They may or may not verbalize it, but it is still there. The entire teaching can be summed up in the slogan: “No Pain – No Gain.”

Although that slogan is usually attributed to weights, it is not exclusive to them. I recall the pain early on in karate. We had to do push-ups on concrete, with our fist closed and our weight totally on the knuckles of our fore finger and middle finger. It hurt for a while. I remember my instructor having me stand flat footed against the wall while he took my leg and with it fully extended, raised it until my nose could touch my knee. The weeks until I was able to do that caused considerable pain.

If someone did not understand the goal, they may have thought the instructor was simply mean, and he may have been. But he understood a very simple fact. You must undergo some strain in order to improve. The same thing is true for weight lifting. You must endure some discomfort in order to build the muscle to whatever is desired.

That is true for almost anything. It is true in college life. There is the pain of study in order to get the education desired. It is true in business. There is the pain of hard work, in order to get the operation at its optimum capacity. It is true in sales. You must make the painful sales call to make the big sale.

It is true spiritually as well. We just use different verbiage to describe it. We call the pain, trials or tribulations. We call the gain spiritual growth and maturity. It is not a vague concept in Scripture either. It is pretty plain. You have heard me say it many times before, "God is in the process of maturing believers, and He has chosen trials to accomplish that goal."

Don't you wish He had chosen blessings to mature us? Me too. But He didn't. He chose trials.

So why do we fight them? Is it that we don't want to grow? I don't think that is it. We want the gain; we just don't want the pain. We want what I call “microwave maturity,” the type that comes quickly and easily. We want the course “30 Days to Spiritual Maturity.”

Guess what? There is no course like that. There never will be. We must endure the hardship in order to gain the blessings.

I am very skeptical of people who come to faith and seem to display sudden maturity. It doesn't happen that way. Even a casual reading of the Gospels and the book of Acts will reveal that Paul left to spend three years alone in the desert to mature. The twelve apostles were given the three year course of study in the Messianic Seminary. Apollos was taken aside by Priscilla and Aquilla for some months. It is a long, laborious and painful process, this path to maturity.

Maybe we should stop fighting the pain. It is bringing the gain. Maybe we should stop bailing out from under the pressure of the trial. It is bringing the joy of maturity. Maybe we should do a little less griping and express a little more gratitude.

Our Father is after our gain. He must bring the pain.