Feeling the pain of others is a fatherly trait. The father who feels the pain of labor or even the burden of carrying a child is a good father. That stands in opposition to the idea that such a father is wimpy or less masculine. It does us good to remember that the one who bears the weight of another while running the race of life is stronger than those who run the race carrying only their own burdens.
When I cut my finger tip on a table saw, some of the students in our youth group would grimace at the thought of what I had done. As I watched their response, their grimaces showed they were feeling my disaster as though it were their own injury. Some would grimace and be forced by their "sympathy pains" to turn their heads and hold one of their own fingers in the palm of their other hand. As quickly as they turned away, they would turn back and ask me to unwrap the bandage so they could see the actual injury. Mysterious as it was to me I observed an inherent willingness to feel what I was feeling.
Paul the apostle was such a person. If there were a qualifying quality making him a spiritual father of so many, it was his willingness and ability to feel the "labor pains" of their spiritual growth. He says in Galatians 4:19 "My dear children, I am in pain for you. Once again I have pain like a woman giving birth. And my pain will continue until Christ makes you like himself."
It is a wonderful trait that humans are able to feel the pain in someone else's birthing. But how much more wonderful that we might feel the pain of spiritual birth.
One cannot have such a quality unless there is an actual event of birth taking place. There is something wrong with us, something which requires the strain of birthing. That something wrong cannot be ignored if birth is to continue on its normal course. For Paul it was that we so quickly qualify faith and trust in Jesus alone with acts of faith or religion. It's as though Jesus' work for others is not sufficient for us. We quickly go AWOL from Jesus to a standard of performance in order to obtain a right standing with God.
We rebuild the structures which Jesus by his sacrifice destroyed and made of no avail. Even in light of their limited efficacy, we give ourselves over to them unaware that we are abandoning the one who is all-sufficient.
Is our own faith so clear, focused, and simple that to see others leave it behind gives us "labor pains"?
