What's the reason why we experience heartache?

I am sadly confident that many, myself included, have felt the pain of disappointment and discouragement. Heartaches come in all shapes and sizes: an unfulfilled romance, a lingering illness and an untimely death, an unachieved goal in life, a broken home or marriage; a severed friendship, a wayward and rebellious child, a personal medical report that advises immediate surgery or treatment, a failing grade in school, a depression that just will not go away, a habit you can’t seem to break. The heartache list is endless.

But let us never forget that our Savior and Lord experienced similar situations as ours and felt those same disappointing and discouraging feelings we endure. Here is a homeless Galilaean carpenter, with twelve very ordinary men around Him, trying to convince and persuade that He is the Christ, the Messiah, and to change the morality of the day .

Think how difficult and dangerous the mission was that Jesus sought to accomplish. But our Lord never let disappointment or discouragement deter Him from accomplishing His divine purpose. Likewise, we should not let disappointment and discouragement hold back our lives and our relationship to the Lord. Why does the God of all mercies and compassion allow our hearts to break, our very souls to be discouraged?

II Corinthians 1: 8&9, We (Paul and his associates) do not want you (the Corinthians) to be uninformed brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia (Ephesus).

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we night not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

The beloved Apostle Paul, the “prince” of the Apostles, became so discouraged one time in Ephesus that he even thought he might be killed or just die because of all the hardships. But this inspired evangelist and writer declares emphatically that God allows discouragement, disappointment and disillusionment to come into our lives so that we will be driven to trust God’s power more and to trust ourselves less. It is a spiritual lesson Elijah and David had to learn the hard way, and we are no different.

A.W. Tozer said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has allowed the man to hurt deeply.” So often in misfortune we find out how much we need God.

Fortunately, we have a God (God the Son) who has experienced, first hand, the ups and downs, the mountains and valleys of this earthly life. And therefore, our Lord can totally sympathize and understand with what we are enduring.

What a Christ!