DIVINE GUIDANCE

Making Gain
Avoiding Pain


Most people are driven by two things: making gain … and avoiding pain.

It’s only natural to want to make gain. We all want to reach higher, go further, do better and achieve more in life.

It’s also quite normal to want to avoid pain and make our lives as “pain-free” as possible. Most people will do anything to avoid everything that causes pain.

Some pains are inevitable and unavoidable – they are simply part and parcel of daily living. They are the normal pressures of life: accidents, disappointments, downturn in the economy …

Other pains, however, are preventable. They need not happen and are caused by things like pride, selfishness, impatience, ego, lack of consultation and so forth. We can and should do our utmost to avoid these needless pains.

Psalm 127 tells us, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city the watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labours; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”
Vain … Pain … and Gain.

All three affect us from time to time depending on what we do and how we go about it.


PAIN
You can chase your dream, leave God out of the equation and still succeed. But the problem is – when all is said and done – your gain is not worth the pain. As Psalm 127 says, you end up “eating the bread of painful labours” – the price you paid unfortunately outweighs the value. It has cost you much more than it is worth.

Yes, you can gain your dream, but you lose other more important things like: your health … marriage … family … reputation and respect in the pursuit of your dream. In other words, the so-called gain has been nothing, but a pain.


VAIN
Psalm 127 also warns us about “building and guarding in vain” i.e. doing things in vain. That means you get no return for your efforts. You pour a lot of time, money and energy into things which look wonderfully promising. You desperately hope to make some substantial gains – but in the end it’s all in vain.

Why? Because it was just another one of your good ideas, not God’s initiative. And you are left licking your wounds, shattered and broken – and broke.

GAIN
The good news is you can avoid pain and your efforts needn’t be in vain. Psalm 127 says, God “gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”

If God is in what you do, you won’t have to struggle, strive and strain. He will turn vain and pain into gain. If God is the Author of your dream, He will also be the Finisher – if not, you’re finished!

King Solomon warns us in Proverbs 16:25 that “There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.”

God knows the end from the beginning – we don’t. What looks great may end in absolute disaster. Without Him, you could go from one problem to another. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” is an old warning worth remembering.