A Life Without Pain and Suffering sounds fantastic.

Who doesn't long for that?

But today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall explores five biblical reasons as to why we suffer.

It's part of his in-depth

series called Steadfast Christianity. And then later in the message he'll

draw from 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2 to share four practical ways that believers

can encourage those who are suffering. His overarching theme is simple. Listen to

God in the days of your pain. He titled his message,

Light for Dark Days. And Chuck begins with a striking illustration.

Approximately one out of every 400,000 babies is born with a rare genetic disease.

That disease is known as familial dysautonomia.

This disease prevents a child from feeling pain.

At first reflection, the inability to experience pain may seem to us like a blessing.

Imagine the possibilities. A football player doesn't feel the pain of contact. A boxer can endure

a terrible beating in the ring and never feel the hurt. Or a woman can bear children without the pain of childbirth. But the tragedy

is that a child with this disease will never live long enough to know the glory of the gridiron

or the joy of childbirth. Such a child will receive cuts, burns, and even broken bones, never feeling anything.

A cavity will rot the tooth without an ache. A broken bone will puncture the skin before anyone

is aware of the fracture. Even an appendix could burst without a sharp pain in the side. So in some ways, pain can be good.

It can be God's warning device that something is wrong. Like a red light on the dashboard that

alerts you to the fact that the engine is hot or the battery is getting too low or the

oil pressure is dropping. Pain can also be a signal of something very, very right that's just in

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