Pain

I was reading in Jeremiah this morning and thinking about God's creation.  I have often enjoyed the song that says, "He made the tree that He knew would be the cross on which Jesus died."  Those may not be the exact words, but the thought has always amazed me that God would make something that He knew would cause His Son so much pain.  That thought led me to thinking about God's creation of the angels and Satan specifically.  We don't know unequivically when the angels were created, and that is not the point of this post, but the thought occurred to me this morning that not only did God create the tree that would He knew would become the cross.  He also created Satan.

Satan, who He knew would rebel against Him.  Satan, who He knew would be the cause of so much pain, not only for people over thousands of years, but also for Himself.  God didn't shy away from creating Satan.  In fact, the Bible tells us that Satan was the most beautiful of all the angels God created.  God purposely created the very being that would be the cause of the most pain He would ever feel, as far as we know.  The other astounding thought to me was the fact that, as far as creation is concerned, it was actually Christ that did the physical creating.

I wondered to myself, would I be willing to create something that I knew would one day cause me more pain, or would I shy away from the task?  It is true, we can have children, and our children can cause us more heartache than anything else, but in general I think we believe that our children will be a good thing in our lives.  As a rule, people try to avoid pain.  We don't pick a rose without looking for the thorns so that we can avoid them.  We don't get into relationships in the hopes that some day this person will break our trust and cause us pain.  We know that is a possibility, just as getting pricked by the thorn is a possibility, but we generally try to make friends for the enjoyment we receive from others not the pain they can cause us; just as we grow the rose not because we might get pricked, but because of the true enjoyment we get from the rose.

And yet, God--Almighty, all knowing, God and His Son, Jesus Christ, did just that.  They created the very being they KNEW, not thought, not hoped wouldn't, KNEW would create the most pain anyone could ever cause another.  I am to be Christlike.  I am to be like Christ in every way possible.  I fail.  I can obviously never be perfect, but I am supposed to try to do the best I can.  I, too, am not supposed to shy away from doing something like witnessing because I am afraid of the pain of rejection. 

There are many things we shy away from because of pain.  For me, it could be witnessing.  For you, it may be something else, but let me encourage you today to do that thing you've been avoiding.  It may be something you've put off for years, maybe just days, or hours.  We often don't think of being Christlike in this way, but isn't this just as much a part of being like Christ as being loving, kind, forgiving, or generous?