What Has Your Pain Created in You?

For many of us who have been in the wilderness for a while, and also throughout our lives, we have experienced great pain, loss, and disappointment. And it almost seems like there has been an invisible force restricting and restraining us from being involved with the very things that we feel we were designed to do, and from the very people we have a burden for and feel most called to minister to. Some of this is to break us from any flesh connected to our vision and natural giftings, but some of it was meant to do something else. Your pain, being denied, and all your disappointment, can be used to create an even greater desire within your heart to do something even bigger for God, than if you had gotten it all the way that you wanted way back when. You may have had to die over and over again to how you thought God was going to fulfill His vision in your life. But if your vision was from God it will remain, and through all the pain, your heart will be developed by God to help an even greater number of people than you originally thought.

Joseph had received a vision when he was a boy about God using him to help his family and provide for them, and guess what happened? The very people that he thought would appreciate and receive him rejected and deserted him. They threw him into a pit, and sold into slavery. Then just as Joseph started to feel like the vision might still be fulfilled by serving in Potiphar’s house, it seemed to just happen all over again when he was falsely accused of rape and imprisoned. But with each rejection and denial, it was getting Joseph closer to the palace, and to his place of his true greater ministry. Joseph thought that he was just going to originally help his family, but God had much bigger plans for him to help many more people. Joseph just had to have his vision crushed and purified enough times, so that all that was left in the end was the vision itself and the desire to help whomever God wanted him to help. It no longer mattered who it was, and all conditions or preconceived ideas about how it would or should happen were abandoned.

You may have been denied things in life that seemed to be the logical conclusion of what God wanted to do with you, and although it crushed you, it got you closer to purer motives for serving, and to your place of greater ministry. God is more interested in developing your heart, than He is about you just running around and doing things. Perhaps you were denied children and it created a great sorrow in you because it seemed that you were destined to become a parent. But now, that denied desire has been purified and amplified, and now you have set your sights on feeding and parenting the many hungry children and orphans of the world. Rejection by the few can drive you to help the many. Perhaps you have a desire to provide for people but you have been denied the ability to make a lot money, and to succeed financially. But the Lord needed to purify your heart first, and fill you with a greater love for even a larger group of people to help first. Joseph kept getting his idea of his vision crushed, but all this pain and rejection was preparing him to feed not just the few, but all of Egypt.

Your life may look like a big failure and wreck like Joseph's did while he was spending day after seemingly wasted day languishing in Pharaoh's dungeon. But your desires and vision have been being purified, broadened, and amplified during this time to help many more people than you had originally anticipated. It is no longer about you; it is now about just doing what God has designed you to do, for whomever He calls you to serve. As long as you don't give up, you will in fact be used on a greater scale to help many people. And although the original vision didn't seem to happen the way you thought that it would, your heart has been secretly prepared to do an even greater thing for even more people than you had originally planned. It’s not about numbers, it’s about God helping many people so that they can get saved. You may have carried a great heartache over certain losses and apparent failures over the years, but that heartache will end up driving you to an even greater number of people in the end. Your life was not as mistake; so let God speak to you and heal your heart from all the old pain that has haunted you. God will make everything right in the end my friend and you will see the wisdom in all that He did in your life.