Paradox of Pleasure

Last week I started running again after an extended hiatus. I hate running. Legs of lead, lungs on fire, a head throbbing to the pounding of my feet- not pleasant. The trouble is, I love the rush of accomplishment and the feeling of well-being and the knowledge that I beat my own laziness and the seductive inclination to be coddled by the couch. A paradox, to be sure.

Then I cleaned the bathroom. Trying not to breathe the Clorox, I began to see a pattern that transcended my shower walls. There are many things in life that I dislike or even loathe doing but do them anyway because the pain is worth the pleasure or product that results. Running and cleaning are just two examples.

Child birth is another: there is nothing comfortable about it; and there is nothing like the beaming bursts of joy sparkling from a new mother's eyes. Travel is similar. A man of letters once said that "traveling expands the soul." That is true once you get there, but the getting there is hellacious and causes more atrophy than anything else. So the paradox remains.

So what? Does it matter that things worth having are often painful? I thought of Christ's crucifixion- the most physically, mentally, and spiritually painful experience any human endured. It was the means of the ultimate salvation- a relationship with our Creator and salvation from His just wrath. The crucifixion of the Perfect Man made salvation a reality for all who would believe. This is the true form of the paradox. Everything else is but a shadow of this exchange.

This thought haunted me until I realized that in our little human exchanges of pain for something greater we are imitating the ultimate exchange. We are imitating Christ, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross , despising shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).