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!
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