Running Through Pain

Guys.

I’d love to be Mr. Fit Life Motivational Cool Guy, but the cold hard truth is I will never enjoy the idea of putting myself through the routine hell of exercise.

Even running, my favorite exercise, turns from a confident young-buck stride to limping awkward old-man pain pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it’s not the young-buck start, but the old-man ending, that makes the biggest difference. The pain is supposed to be the good part!

Quick story. The other day I was listening to a Bible podcast on The Book of Job while I was running. Appropriate, because why not hear about someone else’s suffering while I’m suffering through a run? The pain of my bones repeatedly slamming together along the pavement of my neighborhood put me in the perfect frame of mind to understand Job better. However, it puzzled me about the fairness of God.

Job is the best example of pain I can find in the Bible. The guy does everything right, and has pretty much every possible wrong thing happen to him. All of his wealth is stolen or destroyed in the most ridiculous sequential order you can possibly imagine. His children die all at once… and he has a lot of them. Like, what are the odds there? Even his health deteriorates to the point of boils on his skin. We’re talking adult acne, people.

Even worse, the book makes sure we know God allowed it. I don’t get it, or want to get it, because I don’t like it. Doesn’t seem fair.

But wait. According to the Bible, God IS fair.

Hebrews 6:10 (God’s Word Translation)
God is fair. He won't forget what you've done or the love you've shown for him.

OK. Cool. So if God is fair, does fairness look like someone with good things having really bad days? And why is it that sometimes people with good things have great days full of the getting of more good things, even though they’re DOING bad things? While on the other hand, people with nothing never get anything?

And what, pray tell, does the Bible have to say about all these shenanigans? Well, the book of Proverbs seems to ignore the above questions. Ecclesiastes asks those questions, but doesn’t answer them. The book of Job proves the questions are valid, but doesn’t really answer them either.

Then what IS the book of Job saying? Good question. Gonna be honest, it’s a tough read. But I recently made a deal with God that I would refuse to skip over parts of the Bible I didn’t understand, and although the book of Job is one big part-I-don’t-understand, a deal’s a deal.

I pushed through the podcast while pushing through my run. Both were painful, but weirdly, both left me in a surprising place of deep fulfillment. They gave me what I can only describe as real, honest-to-goodness joy. What I learned, in the end, is that pain isn’t going to feel fair, but in God’s hands it is always going to be good.

Consider a childhood perspective. If mom gives your friend two ice cream sandwiches and gives you one, does that seem fair? No. It’s painful. You thought your mom loved you, but now you realize she loves your friend more. You mourn the loss of your second ice cream sandwich with tears and gnashing of teeth.

Two ice cream sandwiches for your friend and one for you doesn’t feel fair. But what if it’s good? What kind of day did your friend have? What else might your friend be lacking that you have plenty of? What might that extra ice cream sandwich mean to your friend? You don’t know, you’re just a kid. I’m betting your mom probably knows something you don’t.

If God is the parent, I must accept the role of the child. In other words, I must believe God knows everything I know, plus everything I don’t. My concept of fairness will always be relative to my perspective. I’m biased toward myself, and always will be. I need someone higher to challenge me, just the way my mind challenges my body to exercise.

When I run, my body screams “it’s not fair!” but my mind knows “it’s good.” On the occasions when my body submits to my mind, I achieve more than my body thought was possible, and transformation happens.

Similarly, I can learn to be OK with my pain, even count it as joy, if I can learn to anticipate what God is doing in it, through it, around it, maybe all three. Even if it doesn’t feel fair, it’s probably good, and that makes it worth it. 

While I sat on my back porch after the run, panting like a common house dog and sweating more than is probably normal, I started to suspect maybe wisdom has maturity levels, based on how much pain has been involved. Then I realized these maturity levels are actually perfectly matched by 3 books of wisdom literature in the Bible. Check this out…

1). Proverbs is young punk wisdom: all about theories, but without much personal feeling.

2). Ecclesiastes is jaded middle-aged wisdom: it knows theories don’t always play out, and bears the pain of life having kicked it in the face a few times.

3). Last is Job, which is elite, senior wisdom. It has seen enough pain to stop counting. It has learned to stay humble It knows well that life’s not fair and also knows that’s probably a good thing. Most importantly, it has learned the importance of running through pain.

The pain of my run, and my podcast about Job, taught me that maybe pain is not something to run from, but to run through. Through pain comes completeness and maturity, and there may be no other way to get those things.

James 1:2-4 (NLT)
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

What are your thoughts about The Book of Job? Or exercise? Or both? Comment below!