On Being an Agent of Pain

Much of my interest of study has been in the realm of sloth, discipline, courage. Thus in a way – leadership.

Pain in our society is to be avoided. Physical, mental, and emotional pain is something that we are constantly seeking to avoid altogether, and when it can’t be avoided, we seek to alleviate by any means necessary. We look to quick fixes – Pills, Tactics, Procedure, Life Hacks. All these are ways of dealing with the discomfort that pain brings.

I have said that when pain comes, this is God’s way of promoting us. That this is his way of making us stronger. Time under tension is how any muscle grows stronger. It’s through trial and temptation (thlipsis), pressure and squeezing. It produces a frame worthy of the weight of glory promised in eternity.

And so when personal pain comes, it needs to be faced. It needs to be thought of as the very thing that is good for us, the thing that God uses to build us up, to make us profitable, to give us endurance and character and hope.

What I’ve been thinking about more and more is this. How do we as pastors help or hinder that process? Are we to see ourselves primarily as agents of alleviating pain or of administering it? Are we called to make other people’s lives easier and more comfortable? Or are we called to call them to a life of embracing difficulty, of endurance and fortitude, of daring and risk, of zeal for what is good despite the pain?

This means both pastor and parishioner will need to get comfortable with letting pain do its godly work. We can’t let things go? We can’t let people off the hook. We forgive sin, yes, but that’s not letting them off the hook, it’s bringing them face to face with the living God, which is a frightful thing. It means that we must speak boldly against the world and its lies, the flesh and its lies. We must not live in neutral territory because there is no neutral territory. You are either with Him or against Him.

That means pastors must take seriously holding each other accountable. Children do what they see their parents doing. And if Luther is correct that we have fathers in office in the church, and I think he is, we need to being by holding each other accountable. That means not only going to Winkel, but asking the difficult questions that might cause pain. It means that you need to keep your District President on speed dial so that you can contact him with your complaints about the synod and ask him how he is addressing it. If he passes the buck, like we are all wont to do, we can’t let him. It means asking questions at pastors’ conferences to district presidents and officials about how we are managing finances and what is being done with the problems that face us.

It means District presidents contacting the pastors in their districts about their doctrine and practice. It means District Presidents doing this for the Synod President. We are all answerable to each other and mostly to God. Do we even believe that anymore?

In the end, it seems like we not only need to be ready to face the pain that comes to us in life and be eager to see what God is going to do with it, and not turn tail and run from it, but we will also need to be ready and willing to be agents of pain, based on God’s Word, in service to His truth and the good of His Church. This is a difficult task. But the greatness of difficulty is how God uses it, not in how seemingly large it is.