Chapter 7: Pain - "Deeper" by Dane Ortlund

Preparing Your Heart: Pain

Our natural instinct tells us that pain is an obstacle to growth, something to be avoided at all costs. When we experience suffering, disappointment, or frustration, we interpret these as signs that something has gone wrong in our spiritual journey. But what if pain is not an obstacle but a means to deepening our relationship with Christ?

In this chapter, Ortlund explores the counter-intuitive biblical teaching that pain is one of God's essential tools for our spiritual transformation. Scripture repeatedly affirms that suffering plays a vital role in our growth: "We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (Romans 8:17).

As you prepare to read this chapter, reflect on your own attitude toward pain and difficulty. Do you instinctively resist it, trying to escape as quickly as possible? Do you bargain with God, promising greater obedience if he'll just remove the trial? Or do you see pain as something that God might actually use for your good, even as a gift that fosters deeper dependence on him?

This chapter invites you to reconsider suffering through the lens of God's loving purposes. When we understand pain as a means of grace rather than an interruption to it, we can begin to receive it differently – not with stoic resignation, but with hopeful expectation of what God is doing in us through it.

Before You Read

What painful circumstances in your life have you been trying to simply endure or escape rather than seeing as potential tools for growth?
How might your perspective on suffering change if you viewed it as a means to deeper communion with Christ rather than an obstacle to it?

Pain: The Pathway to Growth

This chapter addresses the counter-intuitive reality that pain is a means, not an obstacle, to deepening in Christian maturity. The anguish, disappointments, and futility that afflict us are themselves vital building blocks to our growth.

"Pain will foster growth like nothing else can—if we will let it."

The Universality of Pain

Everyone experiences pain, regardless of geographical location or time period. While some believers face overt persecution, every Christian encounters cancer, betrayal, vocational disappointment, or other adversities.

Beyond specific adversities, there is a pervasive futility shot through everything in this fallen world. Romans 8 speaks of the whole creation "groaning" and being "subjected to futility" (Rom. 8:20-22).

Slicing Off Branches

Each of us is like a vine that naturally entangles itself around a poisonous tree (the world). Through the pain of disappointment and frustration, God weans us from the love of this world. Though it feels like we're being crippled, we are actually being freed from counterfeit pleasures.

Only Two Choices

When pain comes, we stand at a fork in the road: either we take the road of cynicism, withdrawing from openheartedness, or we press into greater depth with God. Pain forces a decision - we either calcify our hearts or put all our weight on our theology.

"If you want to be a solid, weighty, radiant old man or woman someday, let the pain in your life force you to believe your own theology."

Mortification

Alongside pain that comes to us unbidden is the self-inflicted "pain" of mortification - the active killing of sin. As John Owen famously put it, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you."

We don't kill sin primarily by focusing on it, but by looking to Christ. As we are re-enchanted with the beauty of Jesus, sin loses its appeal and begins to wither.

Discussion Questions

How have you typically responded to suffering in your life? Has it drawn you closer to Christ or pushed you away?
How is God currently using pain in your life to detach you from worldly idols?
What's the difference between mortification and self-flagellation?
How might seeing pain as a tool for growth rather than an obstacle change how you approach current difficulties?
What would it mean for you to "put all your weight on your theology" in the midst of pain?

Application

This week, identify one current pain or difficulty in your life. Instead of simply enduring it or praying for its removal, spend time journaling about how God might be using this specific trial to detach you from worldly loves and strengthen your faith. Look for evidences of growth that have already come through this difficulty, and thank God specifically for these blessings that have come through pain.