The unwelcome sensation of pain is actually our friend, warning us that something needs help.
Until quite recently, it was thought that the hands and feet of people with leprosy disintegrated as a direct result of the disease. That was until Dr Paul Brand, son of missionary parents to southwest India, returned in 1946 to the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. He discovered that the loss of extremities was not due to decay, but infection. Because leprosy attacks the nervous system, pain warnings are lost, and damage occurs without the patient’s awareness. The first surgeon in the world to use reconstructive surgery to correct deformities from leprosy, he later served at the only leprosy hospital in the U.S. at Carville, Louisiana. But such developments were thousands of years away when the priests in Israel were called on to diagnose leprosy sufferers. Simply through careful observation, the disease was to be diagnosed. We often object to having pain in our lives, but Dr Brand, who daily saw the ravages in the bodies of his leprosy patients, learned otherwise. “Previously I had thought of pain as a blemish of creation, God’s one great mistake,” he wrote. But he soon learned that “pain stands out as an extraordinary feat of engineering, valuable beyond measure.” In fact, he concluded, “The health of the body depends largely on its attentiveness to the pain network.” So it is with our souls. God has built within us a conscience to warn us of spiritual danger. Paul spoke of those who do not believe, and yet “who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them” (Rom 2:15). What are a believer’s three greatest assets in the war against sin? “A pure heart…a good conscience and…sincere faith” (1 Tim 1:5).