CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – In that moment outside of time just before my rebirth and just after I’d chosen to forgive someone I thought I could never forgive, God told me that the pain I’d felt was the pain I’d earned. He hadn’t done anything to me that I first hadn’t done to someone else.

And then he healed me.

I didn’t know at the time that it was God teaching me about the nature of pain because I still didn’t believe in God. I was an atheist before I was reborn. But his statement “The pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned” was so deeply seared into my consciousness that even today – nearly 24 years later – it is more a part of me than my own name.

Most Christians don’t understand the origin or purpose of the pain they feel. Contrary to scripture, they’re taught that God permits them to suffer because he’s drawing them closer to him or strengthening them in some way. Rarely are they taught that they brought the suffering on themselves through their words, thoughts, or actions. Rarely are they taught that the pain they feel is the pain they’ve earned.

Most Christians strongly reject being told they’ve brought emotional suffering on themselves. They consider it a judgement on them in some way, and most Christians hate being judged. They prefer to be told they’re victims either of someone’s carelessness or evil intent or a target of the devil himself. The devil gets a lot of credit that he hasn’t earned in that regard. I guess it’s easier to blame the devil when things go wrong than to blame yourself.

That’s not to say that the devil doesn’t on occasion look for ways to trip you up. He does; God permitted him to do it even to Jesus. But emotional (that is, spiritual) pain is not from the devil. It’s God’s way of letting you know that you immediately need to take time out to soul-search and repent, the same way as you would immediately stop walking if you twisted your ankle. Spiritual pain is as much a red flag as physical pain, and both need your immediate attention.

Repentance is not something we should do once a year or once a month or even once a week – we should do it every day, if necessary, or whenever we feel spiritual (emotional) pain. Repentance first sheds light on the source of our pain (wrongs we’ve done to others, whether in word, deed, or thought) and then brings us back into close relationship with God and Jesus. Repentance almost always requires us to choose to forgive someone.

Running to anyone (or anything) other than to God and Jesus to complain about how we feel will not take our pain away, because running to anyone (or anything) other than to God and Jesus is not repenting. Only repentance can wash us clean the way we need to be washed clean to live pain-free and in God’s presence, because God can only clean us through our self-acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Where there is no self-acknowledgment of wrongdoing, there is no repentance, and where there is no repentance, there is no forgiveness, and where there is no forgiveness, there is no healing: The pain remains. God can only forgive us if we first choose to repent and forgive. We need to forgive others before God can forgive us. There’s no way around that. And it’s God’s forgiveness that heals us and takes our pain away. So if you want your pain gone, you first need to repent and forgive.

Are you feeling any spiritual/emotional pain? If so, when did you last take time out to soul-search and repent? When we’re hungry, we need to eat, when we’re tired, we need to sleep, and when we’re hurting, we need to repent. Repentance should be as much a part of our daily life as eating and sleeping. It shouldn’t be something special we do only on occasion, as a religious ritual, but something we do as a matter of course throughout our day. Because I can guarantee you that at some point between the time you wake up in the morning and the time you go to sleep at night, you’re going to say, think, or do something that’s going to cause you emotional/spiritual pain. And when that happens, you need to repent. You should never delay repenting; you should repent right away.

If you’re not in the habit of repenting on an as-needed basis, get into that habit. It will keep you spiritually pain-free and close to God and Jesus. Had I not, all those years ago, chosen to forgive someone I thought was unforgivable, I might not have come to understand that the pain I’d felt at the time – the pain that had grown so excruciating that it killed me – was pain I’d earned by how I’d treated others for many, many years. No-one had done anything to me that I hadn’t first done to them or to someone else. This was the most important lesson I’ve ever learned, and the second most important lesson is that I’ve learned to renew the remembrance of that most important lesson every day.

Daily repenting and forgiving keeps me close to God and Jesus and keeps me pain-free.