June 30, 2005

A Rock Feels No Pain
by John Fischer

The popular singing duo, Simon and Garfunkel, had a song early in their career that defiantly asserted individuality and an exaggerated aversion for relationships. In this song the singer talks about being a fortress unto himself, distaining love and laughter, and having no need for friendship. Hiding away in his room with his books and poetry to protect him, he isolates himself from all human relationships because he has identified those relationships as the cause of all his emotional pain. He is a rock and an island — alone to himself in the world.

The philosophy of the song hinges on the words: “If I never loved I never would have cried.” It’s all about protecting oneself from being hurt by removing oneself from what one perceives to be the source of the pain. I think we can all understand these feelings having been hurt by relationships and finding, even for a season, a certain consolation in being alone. But I think we also would agree that isolation is never the answer to this kind of pain. To love anyone is to be vulnerable and open to being hurt. Love and pain go together, and the only true answer to this dilemma is to welcome them both.

Love costs. Think of what Christ paid when he embraced us. Think of the pain the Son of Man endured in loving a lost and wayward humanity. Love is never without pain. When you sign on to a relationship, you sign on to being hurt. Count on it.

C.S. Lewis once wrote about a place where one can be free from the “perturbations” of love. (Perturbation, by the way, is the state of being perturbed.) That place is one’s coffin. Can’t argue with that. Nothing can get through to you there. So Simon and Garfunkel and C.S. Lewis agree: There is a place you can be safe from the painful aspects of being in relationship with others, but who wants to be a dead man?

What would make Christ go through what He went through for us? Love, and all the rewards it brings in warmth, companionship, fellowship and joy. Nothing brings more meaning to life than love. True love is what God is, and what we were made to know with Him and with each other. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, the pain of love will one day be gone. And even now, we can experience its victory.

So what will it be? The high cost and vulnerability of love, or the loneliness of isolation? A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. But a son or a daughter knows a warm place in the family of God even if it hurts sometimes.

 
John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.


 

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