Magdy Samuel

Serialized Articles From:
"Peace amid Pain"

Last Published Devotions

Why is Pain?
Second: Moses and the divine conformation (2)

Dear reader, pain and conforming are necessary for the service and also for the servant, so if you feel like you want to serve God you must suffer. “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

There is no exception from the subject of pain in God’s school.  It was mentioned about our Lord “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8); in this verse “learned obedience” comes as “tried obedience”. I really stand up in respect before this verse; Our God has experienced obedience!  It was mentioned also on him “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”(Hebrews 2:10)  So the pain is a compulsory subject and not optional. God’s work in our life is not perfect without pain, pressures and deprivation; for need and misery are those that change and shape in us until we reach to the final glorified shape.

What’s the difference between coal and diamond? Coal is inexpensive while diamond precious and very expensive. Coal is fragile while diamond is hard and solid. When coal is exposed to fire, it burns and becomes ash while the melting point of diamond is very high. Coal is black and opaque while diamond is glowing with luster. There are many differences between coal and diamond, but there is one common similarity between them. It’s a strange similarity, for both are formed of the same material which is carbon; both are forms and types of carbon.

Here comes up the second question “why the diamond is precious and expensive and is put on the foreheads of the kings while coal is cheap, fragile, is good for nothing but to be burnt?  Coal is the carbon found in the soft layers of the ground and was never exposed to strong pressures or high degrees of temperature, so the coal remained coal while the diamond is the carbon that was exposed to strong pressures and a very high temperature that changed and formed it to become the shining attractive precious diamond.

I have never met a mature believer who wasn’t exposed to pains and pressures, whether in his childhood or in his youth, within his work or in his health. Thus, as much as the pressure adds, the growth is. Inasmuch as we are pressed we grow proportionally. It was said that the people of Israel before departed by Moses from Egypt, the land of slavery, they grew as a result of distress and humiliation “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” (Exodus1:12)

Lets accept with gratitude all the dealings of the wilderness and its burning sun, and bear every pain and pressure from the hand of the potter; for He reforms us not to hurt us but to prepare us for the glory: “And that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory.”(Romans 9:23)

Magdy Samuel