Human Pain

When a calf rolls its eyes, it is a signal of intense pain or terror. But whenever you seek to halter train a calf, so that it will be willing to wear a halter and follow your lead, it will inevitably roll it’s eyes, panting heavily. The calf will begin gasping for air, as if the mere fact that you have tied it to a pole is killing it. And yet this is the only way to tame a calf.

It is possible to try to train a calf by coaxing it with little treats and speaking to it. It may become quite tame, following you around. But as soon as the halter goes on, the calf will be back to square one, baulking and straining at the halter. No, the only way to truly train a calf is by “breaking it” by showing it that it is useless to resist the path that you have chosen for it.

From the perspective of cows watching, this is cruel. In fact, I don’t know that those dear bovines could ever understand. Even when they are standing under the lights of a show ring groomed to perfection with a champion’s ribbon hanging from their halter, the cows probably are just thinking: it’s rather bright and can’t I get my hay soon?

But under those same lights stands the farmer, dressed in his all-white show uniform, beaming with pride at his cow –this is what she was born and trained to be. He is eager to show her to the world in all her bovine glory.

This glow of pride that a farmer feels towards his cow is, in a way, like the pride God takes in us after he has tempered us towards his plan. But Lewis points out that this is a very painful process. Lewis says that, to “render our will which we have so long claimed for our own, is in itself...a grievous pain.”

So why use the cow example? To show that the purpose of pain is rarely understood by those experiencing it. In the same way that you could never explain to a cow why it is “worth it” so we will never be satisfied with any explanation. Simply because His ways are higher than our ways.

That is why we will experience pain, because our ways are different than his, and when these differences are highlighted through pain, it will feel like our ways are being derailed. Because they are. We are going through the painful process of conforming to God’s will. And when we finally stand in the ring, we will, through his leading, be more than champions.