How God Uses Pain

It's testimony time! God does not waste our pain! How did He use the pain of Mary to deliver us all? What can He do with your pain? Join us as we celebrate the God who knows how to use everything we endure.

Join the Journey!

Join the Movement!

Join the PRESS!

#prayer 

#prayers 

#pray 

#christianprayer 

#howtopray  

#biblestudy 

#biblestudyforbeginners 

#biblestudyforteens 

#Christian

#pentecostal 

#apostolic 

#press 

#pressmovement

 @PRESSMovementPodcast  

press2pray.com

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast.

Thank you for joining me. This is the last podcast of this year. We'll be back in January, but I'm excited for what God has done this year.

I'm excited for all the downloads and everybody who has listened or given feedback concerning the podcast and even what the Lord is going to do with it. Stay tuned because we have more coming to the Press in 2025, and I'm praying that all of you will want to be involved. But as we're closing out this year, it was my thought to just give thanks to God.

And I wanted to share a testimony with you all, and I believe we're going to tie it into the Christmas season before we go. So, the thought that the Lord dropped in my heart is actually tied to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 3 verse 16 says, unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.

In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Then I also want to look at Isaiah 9 and 6. For the Bible says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Finally, Matthew 121 says, And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

In looking at these passages, I was looking at how God knows how to bring forth his purpose out of our pain. Now, I'm not trying to be deep here or anything like that, but I thought about Christmas and Jesus being born like a mom, a mom who's had three children. None of them were easy, right? It's painful to have children.

At times it's painful to carry children just in your womb. I'm not just talking about labor and delivery. I'm talking about your whole body changing.

You can't sleep the way you used to sleep. You can't eat the way you used to eat. Your senses are hypersensitive.

Sometimes you're emotional. You can be dramatic. The things that were once easy for you physically now are challenging because you have an extra 30, 40, 60 pounds, whatever it may be.

And it is a struggle. It is a God-ordained struggle though. And I think that's what makes it different than other struggles.

Because though it's painful, and though he said it would be, he already knew that even though he would let the sorrow be multiplied in conception, one day he'd use the same process to make sure that there would be a son born and his name would be wonderful. His name would be counselor. This would come out of that process of pain.

When I think about how God uses processes, even when he allows pain, that's not usually the first thing I think about in terms of Christmas. But like I said, I thought about it like a mom. And I realized one, that he never lets it not be worth it.

Every time God allows you to suffer, he makes it worth it. My mind went back to 2016. I'm not sure if I've shared this testimony on here or not, but if I have, bear with me.

I asked the Lord every year what he wants for me. Usually that's an offering goal in terms of like money or fasting or even a prayer time, that kind of thing. Saying, God, what do you want from me this year? What sacrifice can I give you? In 2016, I asked the Lord that and he said, sickness.

That was nothing as I was expecting. When the Lord says sickness, I was like, okay. So January 2nd of that year, I had the mumps.

Not that big of a deal. They're kind of extinct almost, you know, you get vaccinated against them and whatnot. So it was a little weird that I had them.

But other than a very, very, very big face and pictures I will never share, I was pretty okay. Slightly feverish and did not want to be seen in public, but pretty okay. So I was like, okay, sickness, no problem.

About a week and a half later, I got the flu. The flu was a little harder. Seven days, I had a pretty high fever, but even in the back of my mind, I'm like, okay, Lord, it's just the flu.

I thank you. I know you said sickness, so these things aren't too bad, right? But the last day of the flu, when it seemed like my body was getting over the fever and things like that, my joints began to swell. And that's when things started to get interesting.

I developed nodules at some of my joints, like these huge knots, and I couldn't walk up and down the stairs. So much of the next month I stayed downstairs. I would crawl up and down the stairs when I had to go or walk really, really slowly.

At times, I remember my kids just even carrying my iPad for me because my hands couldn't hold it up. And I was like, okay, God, this is getting real now. With that, my eyes turned red.

So we're still only in like March of 2016. When my eyes turned red, that was actually worse than the joints because they were in so much pain if any light hit them. I'll never forget trying to keep ibuprofen next to my bed so that I could even get out of bed because the pain of the sun coming through the window with my eyes shut was so great.

I would try to take the ibuprofen, cover my eyes, and get up 30 minutes later. I went to the eye doctor. They said, oh, you have a damaged optical nerve and it wasn't repairable.

And they said they saw swelling behind my eyes. And there was so many things just happening in my body. That year, I ran a fever for 7 to 15 days of 100 to 104.

It was constant. A lot of you may know us from TM Youth Camp, or you may know I have a Children's Camp. I had a 100 degree fever at TM Youth Camp, 101 at Children's Camp.

And by that point, I stopped staying home over it because I figured I wasn't contagious. Literally, nobody else was sick but me. In my whole house, this was my assignment.

This is what the Lord said He wanted for me. He wanted sickness. And He let pain go to work.

But I thank God because I didn't know if He would let all of the pain end. I didn't know if God was going to heal me. I didn't know if He was going to turn it.

But I knew He said it. And I began to comfort myself with the fact God allowed this pain for me. And that at any moment, if He changes His mind, it has to go.

It was simply an employee of my God. And I thank God for what He taught me about Him in pain. There's some things you can't learn while laughing.

There's some things you don't learn on the happy days. You learn what you really believe, what you're really going to stand for, and if you're really going to endure when endurance becomes a challenge. It is a different fight when you have chronic illnesses going on, and you don't know that you'll be better the next day.

But you know the God who let the pain come to you. All I knew was that because God has spoken it to me, there had to be a purpose to it. I knew He had to make it count.

And I'm testifying today that God is a God who knows how to bring forth purpose out of pain. He did that for me. Now, He didn't let everything get better.

It has now been eight years, and I don't think I've had a pain-free day in eight years. And sometimes it's worse than others. But there are some things He lifted.

He healed my eyes, and I don't have fevers all the time anymore. But He let the pain linger. With that said, I think these eight years spiritually have been some of the most productive in my life.

I learned I want God more than I want my own health. I want God more than I want my own happiness. I want this God and love Him so much, I'm willing to follow Him when it hurts.

And I thank God for adding purpose to pain. Like I said, though, it made me think about Mary and how she had to go through. You know, even her fiancé, Joseph, felt some kind of way about her at first.

He wasn't willing to put her away publicly, but he thought she had been not so faithful. And it is easy to imagine the pain of people thinking you're something you're not or you're doing something you didn't. And then you add to that, I'm going through changes on the inside too.

I thank God, though. He knows how to make it worth it. Today, we celebrate what was birthed through Mary.

Through her yes, through her sacrifice, we celebrate that Jesus Christ came. And it's true, I believe if she hadn't been willing, there would have been another. So we don't elevate Mary in any way, shape, or form.

But we do recognize once again that she has a story and a testimony to share that God did this. And He did it in spite of what people were thinking, saying, or even the trials and heaviness it put upon her. This season, we celebrate that Jesus came, that He makes all things worth it, that He knows how to make it count for your good.

I pray that today you'll remember even as Paul wrote in Romans 8 18, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Today, keep pressing because on the other side of what God is allowing is something that will be revealed in you. God bless you and keep pressing and have a happy holiday season.

Be blessed. Join the movement. Join the community.

Like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit PressToPray.com.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.