Painful Lessons

“Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things.”

Those are the words of the famed pleasure seeker Oscar Wilde. In his De Profundis, written in prison, he described with profound earnestness how much sorrow had taught him. He went on to add, “Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Some day people will realize what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do.”

As I reflect on those words, I first take note of the one who wrote them. A life of pain was the farthest thing from Oscar Wilde’s mind when he made his choices. In that sense, none of us would ever choose sorrow. But I take note of something else: He says that sorrow is holy ground and until we learn this we do not know what living means. What he means at the very least is that some of life’s most sacred truths are learned in the midst of sorrow. Wilde himself learned that raw unadulterated pleasure for pleasure’s sake is never fulfilling pleasure. Violation of the sacred in the pursuit of happiness is not truly a source of happiness. In fact, it kills happiness because it can run roughshod over many a victim. Pleasure that profanes is pleasure that destroys.

Sorrow, on the other hand, while never pursued, comes into one’s life and compels us to see our own finitude and frailty. It demands of us seriousness and tenderness if we are to live life the way it is meant to be lived. One of the most important things sorrow does is show us what it needs and responds to. Wilde said it himself: “Sorrow is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain.”

You know, of all the descriptions given about Jesus, one of those that stands out is the one uttered by the prophet Isaiah. Speaking of Christ, the prophet says: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (53:3a).

Maybe you are at a time in your life when hurt is writ large upon your thoughts. The Lord Jesus is not unacquainted with your pain. In fact, he draws near particularly with a hand of love. Your wound may still bleed for a while to remind you of your weakness. But he can carry you in strength and help you bear the pain. This could be holy ground for you.

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Copyright © 2004 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. “A Slice of Infinity” is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.