Sunday Sermon: Pain Produces Pearls
None of us is exempt from suffering. Those who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you are not suffering something for Christ’s sake, there may be a struggle in your flesh. But you can believe that if you are following Jesus, some struggle is going on.
Remember the oyster, the little creature that can have the misfortune of getting a grain of sand inside its shell against its tender flesh? What does the oyster do about it? This little creature does not curse providence. How does the oyster handle its pain? It simply secrets a white liquid substance around the grain of sand in its shell, coating it with smoothness. It secretes until the sand is no longer sharp and abrasive. And I have to believe that the source of this white liquid substance is part of the Creator’s grand design, for the Lord has equipped the oyster with the means by which it can handle its pain. From the substance the oyster creates around a grain of sand, we find a pearl. That is how pearls are made.Pain produces pearls.
Through a mature relationship with God, we can be equipped for the journey, for even pain can be a messenger.We should thank God for pain. A painless heart attack, I understand, is something very woeful because pain can be a messenger of a serious condition.
The poet William Cowper faced many discouragements and disappointments, even attempted suicide by hanging himself, but the rope by which he was suspended broke. Such was the history of the man who lived to write, “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.”
