Driving through the Empire

"Ouch."

This is the final line of dialogue from The Empire Strikes Back. Now, I must warn you that there might be spoilers here if you haven't seen The Empire Strikes Back. And if you actually haven't seen the movie, go grab the nearest geek and asked to borrow his/her pre-1997 DVD of it. Or just wait until September when Lucas re-re-releases them on BluRay. You know that every fanboy and fangirl will buy their overpriced copy...and yes, I will too probably.

Sorry, back to what I was writing...yes, "ouch." These four letter pretty much sum up the entire movie. From the pain of war to seeing Lando wearing clothes straight out of Hahn's closet. Seriously, check it out in the final scenes, he's wearing Hahn Solo's outfit. Creepy.

The whole movie is about pain. The pain of losing, the pain of the past, the pain of getting your hand chopped off by a lightsaber while dangling very precariously off a ledge. The Empire Strikes Back is all about pain, loss and struggle. And it is all summed up in the word "ouch."

Now, many who saw Empire back in the day were struck at just how hopeless the ending of the movie seemed. Hahn was frozen in carbenite, Lando took off in the Millennium Falcon, and the Rebels were scattered all over the galaxy.

Yet, during this time of trial and struggle, Luke had Yoda walking him through his training as a Jedi. He had a teacher who taught him how to focus, how to concentrate, how to fight and how to escape. This training is what Luke leaned upon when he fought Darth Vader, whom he learned (*spoiler*) was his father.

Now, I'm not comparing Jesus to Yoda what soever. But, in order for Luke to be healthy, he needed a trainer, a teacher to walk with him (and sometimes on Luke's back hitting him) to endure and to understand and to learn. During a time of temptation, Yoda talked Luke through it.

When going through our own Empire Strikes Back, we have our teacher, savior and friend, Jesus, walking with us through it. He is talking with us through tough and dark times. We have one who is greater than Yoda, who died for us so that we might have life. And he teaches us what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Remember this, yes, Empire Strikes Back is bleak, but there is The Return of the Jedi. We need to drive through the hurts, the pains, the struggles of our own life, of our own Empire in order to make it to The Return of the Jedi. Jesus will walk you through this and bring you safely to the other side.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4

My ears a painin'

So, I got this wicked bad earache/infection going on here. Massive pain in the ear. This last Friday, my wife (oh so loving and wise beyond her years) said I should probably go get it checked out sooner rather than later. I was busy on Friday. I had to get a ton of work done and visits in. Plus I had a sermon to finish and a funeral meditation to get done. I didn't have time to do that. And so I pressed onward figuring that if I just put some of those Wal-Mart earache drops in my ear and pop some Tylenol, I'll be just fine.

Yeah, so not the case. Saturday it started hurting and that ringing sound started playing where you want to make sure that the phone is ringing and not your ear and you're wrong, it is your ear. Yeah. That. Then Sunday it started hurting worse. Monday around 4am I was cursing the day I was born, folded in the fetal position, rocking back and forth trying hard to find my happy place. Okay, so I wasn't really doing that, but I was up with a heating pad watching late night TV in a ton of pain. I almost drove my self to the ER.

As soon as the doctor's office opened up, I called up to make an appointment. I was seen later on in the afternoon and given a bunch of stuff including the wonderful concoction of Tylenol 3.

This got me to thinking--How many times do we ignore our own pain, our own physical pain (just play through the pain), our own emotional pain (spreading the peanut butter over the pie, sealing away the cracks of pain [a line from Mall Cop]) and our own spiritual pain (God can't love me for what I've done).

Honestly, we do it way too often. We ignore the pain hoping it goes away. We ignore it or try to cover it up hoping that we can maybe get over it. Other times it becomes the excuse we use to avoid others, including God.

What pain are you going through right now. Get it checked out. What pain do you have with God? Lay your pain at the feet of Jesus. Give him your worries, anxieties and pains. He's big enough. He can take it.

And what did I learn from all of this? Listen to my wife next time.

Pain Hurts

"Some say pain is an illusion. Others say pants are. Pain is weakness leaving the body, pants are nakedness leaving the body. " Anonymous (for a reason I think)

I heard it in football, I heard it in weight lifting--play through the pain. No Pain, no gain. In someways, I understand. Don't let a little thing get in the way. In the playoffs last year, Cutler played on a broken leg. He played through the pain. In weight lifting, the pain or burn that you feel are the muscle fibers snapping under the strain. This snapping or breaking of the muscle fibers is what causes the muscles to grow bigger. The same is true in sports and conditioning. The harder you push, the pain hits and then you're body recovers and mends so that it can withstand what you put it through. But the body has limits too.

Pain also is a message to your body to stop. Fire hurts. Stop touching it. You're elbow doesn't bend that way. Stop. Other times, it is a sign that the body is healing itself. I had dental work done yesterday and boy howdy does it hurt like a kick in the head by a mule. But a lot of work was done on that section and now the body is healing and repairing and it frakin hurts like the dickens.

Pain isn't seen it's felt. And the signs of pain can be seen on people no matter how hard we try to hide it. There's also too much pain. There's diseases such as Fibromyalgia (a very real disease) which causes constant pain and fatigue. Other times there is cancer which can cause insurmountable pain that you have a hard time dealing with it.

Pain hurts.

So does emotional and spiritual pain. And that pain almost never is seen but it is strongly felt. We don't like to admit these types of pain. It shows that we are weak. That we can't handle things. We have a hard enough time admitting our physical pain, it's even harder to admit our emotional and spiritual pain.

Yet, we have a promise for healing those as well. And it can be tough. Tough to admit to ourselves and tough to admit to God. Yet, we hear these words

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Now, I'm not promising it all will be perfect, but there is a promise that you can make it through a lot better than you might be now. Jesus can change your attitude on how you deal with the pain.

Control how you deal with the pain don't let it control you.

What pain are you dealing with now? How can Jesus change the way you deal with it?