Have you ever heard the expression, “No pain, no gain.”?
It’s a classic exercise axiom used to express the idea that real physical gains do not come without some degree of pain. It really rose to prominence in the public psyche in 1982 with the popularity of Jane Fonda’s aerobics videos. Viewers were reminded that there is no gain without some pain.
I remember in university an exercise physiology prof telling us that good workouts create discomfort, but should not be causing pain. If your exercise is causing pain then you are probably doing more damage than good.
One of our friends during house group one evening brought up a commonly held Christian axiom that got me thinking about Jane Fonda’s sage exercise advice,
“God will never give you what you can’t handle.”
My friend said, in so many words, that she thought this Christian axiom was a lot of bunk. I agree with her.
The truth is that God often gives us what we can’t handle. Or, perhaps more accurately, He gives us what we think we cannot handle. He does this to strengthen us: to push us outside our comfort zone into the realm of uncertainly in regard to our ability to ‘control’ circumstances.
Back to the physiology of exercise: a critical principal of muscle growth is the “overload principle”. In order for a muscle to grow it must be overloaded beyond what it can currently comfortably handle. In fact, according to the University of New Mexico,
“When muscles undergo intense exercise, as from a resistance training bout, there is trauma to the muscle fibers that is referred to as muscle injury or damage in scientific investigations. This disruption to muscle cell organelles activates satellite cells…to proliferate to the injury site. In essence, a biological effort to repair or replace damaged muscle fibers begins with the satellite cells fusing together and to the muscles fibers, often leading to increases in muscle fiber cross-sectional area or hypertrophy. The satellite cells…fuse to muscle fibers to form new muscle protein stands and/or repair damaged fibers. Thus, the muscle cells’ myofibrils will increase in thickness and number.”
In other words, muscle growth does not occur without “trauma” to the muscle fibres. In essence, no pain, no gain.
I believe it is the same for our spiritual growth.
The Lord often stretches us beyond what we think we can handle in order to shift us out of our own strength into His. Don’t you want to live life with a strength beyond what you are naturally capable of? The only way you can do that is to surrender to the Lord’s gym for the Coach to push you outside your comfort zone and into the faith zone.
Is it comfortable? Nope. Do we usually wish we would not have to go through the process of refinement? Absolutely.
Yet those strengthened in the crucible of God could not become who they are by any other means. For precious metals to be refined there needs to be intense heat. For diamonds to be formed there needs to be intense pressure. For muscles to grow there needs to be trauma. For Godly men to be created there needs to be heat, pressure and trauma – there is no other way.
What feels ‘traumatic’ in your life could very well be the training of God refining you into the man He has created, crafted and called you to be.
“God will not give you what you can’t handle” is not accurate.
A truer axiom is, “The will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”
No matter how difficult your situation is, the grace of God is sufficient for you. And, humility releases the grace of God. Call out for grace amidst the “trauma” in order to embrace the growth the Lord has for you. Humble yourself and surrender to the Coach’s training in order to receive the Coach’s strength.
The process from which you are begging God to deliver you may be the very process He has ordained to refine and strengthen you.
Oftentimes there is no gain without some pain, though we wish it weren’t so.
Hebrews 12:11
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
Romans 5:4
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
1 Peter 1:6, 7
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”