The Purpose of Pain.

As I was having my moan and groan session with God, He revealed to me an interesting revelation.  My topic of discussion with God was the idea of trails and tribulation that people have to endure in life.  I told God that I did not understand that why people and as Christians  we have to endure many of the hardships of life.  I was speaking about myself in particular because it seems as though life lately has been hitting me hard and it just would not let up.

Almost as fast as I asked the question I got an unexpected answer from God.  God told me that if we did not have pain then how could we ever know or understand the true dynamic of pleasure.  This made no sense to me and so I ask God could He elaborate.

One thing that God pointed out to me was that our time on Earth was only temporary.  Although to us it seems like what we are going through seems like forever or like we have been in a hardship for a long time.  To God, He sees our time here on Earth as literally a blink of an eye.  We are to spend eternity which is forever in heaven if this is where we choose to go.

God explained to me that when people finally go to heaven that they are thankful, grateful, and appreciative of the perfection of it.  The reason being is because they remember what Earth was like.  The hardships, pain, trails, and tribulations.  So when they enter a world that has none of that, they are in awe of the perfect environment that God has created for them, in which no negativity exist.
This brought me to my next question.

 I asked God, why even put humans on Earth at all, why could He not create a world in which everything was perfect?  Once again as soon as I asked the question God answered me, telling me that He did.  This is what the garden of Eden was all about.  When God created Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden, it was a slice of heaven here on Earth.  But soon Adam and Eve began to take this perfect place for granted.  God was giving them everything they ever wanted and needed.  They had no  pain and trouble.  But God gave Adam and Eve something that can be seen as both a good and a bad thing and that was free will.

God told Adam and Eve

"but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."  Genesis 2:17

They knew that they could die if they ate from the tree.  But I am convinced that they did not understand it.  Everything in their life and everything that they have ever experienced had been perfect.  Even though they had been told about the pain that would occur if they ate from the tree, they could not fathom the idea of pain because they had never seen or experienced it.  Therefore, when the serpent told them that they would not die when eating from the tree, they would become more like God.  Eve freely ate.

She quickly forgot that in the garden of Eden God provided for them.  They did not have to work, hunt, or do any hard labor.  They did not even know that this was a possibility because God had shielded them from that.  They could not appreciate the goodness of God because to them,  the world in which they lived was normal. God had never shown them the evils of the world and what it could be.  But when they ate from the tree their eyes were open and they became corrupted.  Having God's grace, goodness, provision, and mercy in the garden was not good enough for them.  They were ungrateful and wanted more.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I am about to get a whole lot deeper.

The Bible states that

"His angels, you mighty ones who do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word." Psalms 103:20

The angels were made to obey God.  But wait, wasn't Satan an angel? But I am sure that God made Satan into something very different than the other angles, which caused him to turn away from God.

The Bible states these things about Satan:

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made." Genesis 3:1

"I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian. You had access to the holy mountain of God and walked among the stones of fire."  You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you...You became filled with violence within,And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God"  Ezekiel 28:14-16

I bet you  never thought of Satan and one of God's most beautiful creatures?  That is until he was filled with pride and instead of wanting to serve God, he wanted to become God.  I think that Satan had a lot in common with Adam and Eve.  That is being one of God's most wonderful creations and due to their own sinful actions were cast out.

Also like Adam and Even, Satan lived in a perfect world.  He lived in complete and utter perfection in heaven.  He soon became ungrateful for the things that God had created for him and had done for him because he did not know the other side of the spectrum.  And so he took God for granted and taking God for granted soon left him feeling entitled.  He soon felt that he deserved the favor and environment that God  gave him.  He soon felt that because he was special and God made him different that he was somehow better than God.  And so he went around heaven turning some of the other heavenly creatures against God. Until God had to put a stop to it.  And God cast all of them out into hell and into a world that was separate from God.  One in which he would not have God, God's favor, or God's provisions.

Sounds familiar.  Does it not parallel the ideal of Adam and Eve getting cast out of the garden of Eden. They chose to believe Satan and think that by eating from the tree that they would become like God.  Similar to Satan who wanted to be like God and thought that he was better than God because of the position that God gave him in heaven.

I know that this was a bit of a ramble but this is what God revealed to me.  You see God tried to give us a life of perfection.  With no hardships or pain.  But this leads to a sense of entitlement and ungratefulness.  But with pain, and seeing that God will bring us out of the pain in both this life and the next, we get a better understanding of God, and we get a better understanding of who He is and what He does for us.

Look at it this way.  If you have a child that is not disciplined, the child is often bad and does not know how to act.  The child soon thinks that it is them who runs everything and not the parent.
Or what about homeless people or people who are extremely poor that are taken out of their situation and given a home or a steady income.  They are more grateful of their new situation because they know what it was like to go without as oppose to those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and takes these things for granted.  Although we may not understand pain, trails, and tribulations of this world.  It is necessary, believe it or not, for our own good.