Psychology of Pain

Job 16:6 NIV

"Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.”

Why Do We Have To Face Pain?

I can’t make up my mind. What is the worst form of pain to face? Unconscious pain, manifested in nightmares and unexplained depression and anxiety is debilitating. Conscious pain, brought on by clear and obvious events that make us miserable and breed anger and despair. Physical pain which can be excruciating or more or less just tolerable is terrible too. When I was in high school, I separated my shoulder playing goalie for our soccer team. We didn’t have anyone else to play goalie so I finished the first half and then the second half. I could not lift my hand above my shoulder which made it pretty tough diving to stop shots and that night I could not sleep because of the pain. In fact it hurt to even breathe for two weeks. The pain prevented many of my favorite activities…I could not play basketball, couldn’t practice with my softball team and could barely take notes in class. I often prayed during the next few weeks that God would take the pain away, that He would help me get to sleep and that He would (I thought this somehow was needed) forgive me of whatever sins I had been committed that led Him to push such pain upon me.

When we are pain free, we are also many times carefree. We can think about anything we want, daydream, put plans into place and take on whatever projects we care to start. But when we are suffering from pain, we get swept away by it. If you have lost your job and you are dumbfounded by your bills, the pain of your circumstance clogs your mind and makes it so you can think of nothing else. When you have suffered a great trauma in childhood, the pain of it never really leaves you and it bubbles up in your dreams, your relationships and in your handling of problems and trying times. Physical pain numbs your brain to everything else. A broken finger, a bad back, an upset stomach and it takes a tremendous act of the will to think about something other than the pain. You have done it and so have I, tried to get rid of pain with aspirin, Motrin, or perhaps illegal drugs or heavy drinking. We go to counselors when our psychological pain is too much to bear and to chiropractors for the physical pain. But why do we have to suffer pain at all? What is the good of pain? Why would God let us face pain if He could stop it?

There is nothing speculative about pain…we all face pain and some of us experience it every single day. At the risk of being misunderstood and misinterpreted, it would be worthwhile to consider the point at which pain became a part of the human experience. When Adam and Eve first sinned, the outcome was that Eve would suffer pain in childbirth and Adam pain in trying to get his work done. To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16 NIV) That is both physical pain and tremendous potential for psychological pain for the woman. To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (Genesis 3:17 NIV) Again, we have for Adam physical pain and psychological pain built into the struggle to make a living. Pain, in its most raw sense is the result of sin, of Adam and Eve deciding to be the master of their souls, to live as if God is absent. That is the essence of all sin, the declaration of independence from God. Sin is the force behind all that is wrong in our world and all that is wrong in us. Both the sins we commit and the sins of others warp our personalities and our thinking. Enough sin and God becomes an enemy and a prison guard rather than our joy and freedom. Sin wrecks us from top to bottom and we often don’t even know it.

Pain knocks the legs out from under our independence. If I have come to think that I am the boss, pain makes a fool of the thought. Pain makes itself king and it refuses to be carelessly cast aside. Try to ignore pain and if it continues, you cannot. You can medicate pain but it comes back up and rules over you as a fierce tyrant. You can go to Disneyland, hang out at a jazz bar, watch your favorite team on TV or start a new relationship but pain won’t let go of you and you cannot just shake it off.

The ancient book of Job located in the middle of the Bible is a sort of case study on pain. It gives us a fresh understanding of what pain is and why God lets it continue for now. Job lived a pretty care-free life up to the moment God and Satan had their monumental meeting in the heavens. God pointed out just how good Job was and Satan contended that he was only good because God kept him from pain. God insisted that Job would still be loyal to Him if he faced pain and Satan replied, “Let’s see!” However, God only let Satan bring Job psychological pain. This is not to belittle Job’s pain! What he faced was horrific. In one day all his kids died and he lost his wealth. It is fascinating though to see that this psychological pain did not knock him off his feet. At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:20-22 NIV)

For many, psychological pain is the worst sort of pain and it renders them unable to function practically. The loss of a loved one, the abuse suffered as a child, the devastation caused by financial ruin, the experience of rejection all create a level of pain that can be unbearable. But Job was not brought to his knees by psychological pain and so Satan demanded (if one can demand anything of God) that the Lord let Job suffer physical pain…and that did the trick. The sores Satan used to afflict Job knocked Job off his feet. He was wrecked by his pain. He wished he had never been born. "May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!'” (Job 3:3 NIV) He wished he could just die. "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed!” (Job 14:13 NIV) The pain was so intense that Job was forced by it to turn to his friends to help him cope with it. But his friends did not have the capacity nor the will to really help him in his pain, and so Job did what pain is intended to stir in us, Job turned to the only one left to him. God!

Before the pain, Job was carefree and unperturbed by what he faced. When pain attacked him though, Job had only two categories of thought…pain and God. Now we must admit Job’s thoughts about God were not civilized as we think of religiously civilized thought. He said God was unfair. "As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are in the right; (Job 27:2-5 NIV) He thought God didn’t care. “…then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. "Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.” (Job 19:6-7 NIV) He decided God was his enemy. “God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.” (Job 16:9 NIV)

Something happened though with Job as his pain continued. He began to think of God in a new way…as the one He needed, as his redeemer. The Hebrew word translated redeemer is a fascinating term. It describes one who is a relative that has the means to get you out of debt when you sold your land because you were too poor to keep it or a relative who marries you as a widow to protect your family or one who buys you out of slavery. The redeemer was a savior who paid the price for your rescue. When pain comes upon you and when it is deep pain, you can only think seriously of two matters: your pain and the hope of someone saving you from your pain. Job voiced this well as his pain had evolved from psychological pain to physical pain and then to spiritual pain. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27 NIV) If you read closely the last parts of Job’s comments before God intervenes, all he can think about is God…His mind is on nothing else; not his marriage, not his friendships, not his finances; he is laser focused on God. He does not need a tasty dinner, a new flock of sheep, a house with more rooms, an upgrade on his computer, a better smart phone, a wife who listens to him or friends who respect him. He needs, and really needs a redeemer…he needs God.

Pain is the psychological button God uses to awaken us so that we will not waste our life with Him. Imagine someone brilliantly talented at singing never developing her voice, a savant mathematician never bothering to study math, a greatly gifted inventor never working out one of her ideas. The absurdity of unfulfilled talent is a terrible tragedy and yet there is not a talent we possess that compares to the opportunity before us to live our lives with Jesus Christ. To cast our time with Him away is the greatest mistake of our lives and when we risk doing so, God pushes the button and pain erupts. Suddenly we are thrown off our game, disoriented and like a driver trying desperately to get his car straightened when it begins to spin in a patch of black ice, we find pain shutting down every single concern we have but these two…our pain and our God.

Job’s story is about two matters only: pain and the need for God. Your life is the story of one matter…your life with God. If you get distracted from this; if you lose your mind on something other than Jesus Christ saving you, it is a terrible tragedy for you. Set your mind on Christ again and again and again. When your mind is set on Christ and fully upon Him, then your mind is aligned with the mind of God and every thought you have has the power of God working in it and through it. Why waste that great and glorious opportunity? Why wait for pain to snap you back to reality? God is present, God loves you, and God will work through you if you give Him the opportunity to do so!