pain – Broken Believers

The Awful Pain of Job

“Oh, why give light to those in misery,
and life to those who are bitter?
²¹They long for death, and it won’t come.
They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure.²²They’re filled with joy when they finally die, and rejoice when they find the grave.

²³Why is life given to those with no future,
those God has surrounded with difficulties?”

Job 3:20-23, NLT

Job begins to curse his very existence. Life has become far too brutal. He has lost everything. At this point Job is completely undone.

There is an endless grief that even his tears can’t help.

In Job’s first speech he asks some basic questions:

Why is light given to those who are full of pain?
Why does life unfold to the one who rather not live anymore?

There is a powerful wish or desire in this three verses. He wants to die, and end the charade. He wishes for non-existence and laments that he can not die fast enough. His terrible pain has taken his life.

People with disabilities and chronic pain can understand Job’s welcome craving for any sort of release. Once they were “whole” people. Death was something to be avoided at all costs. But now it is seen as an escape.

Job simply wants out.

Hurting people will often turn to drinking and drugging as a way of coping. We’ll try anything to numb our thinking. It’s what gets us through the day. We are bitter, and we are lost.

For Job (the patron saint of pain) finds that nothing will fix him. His friends have come, but they seem to only accuse and confuse job. Honestly he is better when they just sat with him in silence. If you read the book of Job you will understand.

“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly.”

–Philip Yancey

“Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens. Don’t turn away from me, or I will die. Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.”

Psalm 143:7-8

ybic, Bryan

Pressure

Who Suffers From Affliction?

We all experience trial and affliction no matter who we are or how lost we are. Everyone hurts. Often we see the ungodly man or woman in suffering: “Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.” Ps. 107:17

However, it really isn’t as easy to understand the sufferings of the believers. We can try to explain it but we still end up with questions:

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”

Ps. 34:19.

I guess there is some comfort in understanding that other believers are also being tested and that it is part of God’s plan.

What Are Some Godly Examples of Testing?

Job– “see thou mine affliction;” Job 10:15
Moses– “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” Hebrews 11:25
David– “I am afflicted very much; revive me, O LORD, according to Your word.” Ps. 119:107
The Prophets– “My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience.” James 5:10
Jesus Christ– “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth” Isa. 53:10
Paul– “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart” I wrote to you, with many tears. “ 2 Cor. 2:4
Many others–Hebrew 11:32-38

But it’s not enough to know the ‘reality’ of your affliction. We really want to know why. Why am I suffering in this way? Moses, probably the stellar personality in the Old Testament asked, “So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me?” Ex. 11:11

Afflictions Are For Our Good

Psalm 119:75 says, “I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”

Why would the psalmist thank God in afflicting him? I think that perhaps he was able to see through the affliction. He then could realize that the intentions and purposes of God were good and edifying to him. He saw the divine purpose in God’s hands. He chose to trust that. No matter what his particular burden was.

This pain is working out for our good

The Bible is quite clear on this subject. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” 2 Cor. 4:17. Exceeding and eternal! Words that need to impress us with their weight.

Our afflictions dare not become our focus, rather, it’s what they produce must be fully understood.

We are explicitly told this, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”, Romans 8:28.

Oh how Jesus loves you. Stay in that love, okay? Jude 20-21.

“We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Facing Down Your Dragon

“For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.”

Psalm 38:17

Over 85 million Americans live in chronic pain. That’s amazing. Maybe you’re one of them and maybe you just want to understand — perhaps you have a friend or family member who is hurting. They’re facing their dragon and that can be a challenge.

Pain can be constant, or, it can be intermittent. It shows up unpredictably. One never knows when. But believe me, it is terribly real, even if it’s not continual. I look at my dragon in the eye far too often. Way too often.

There are different kinds and various levels to it. Healthcare people often use the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). Pain is ranked by numbers between 1-10, the higher the number the greater the pain.

Christians are part of that 85 million. We’re not immune just because we believe in Jesus. Some of us will hurt.

Coping with Chronic Pain

Learn all you can about your particular issue. I’m constantly looking and hopefully learning all I can, I want to be an expert. Research things. Google and Wikipedia can be deep reservoirs of knowledge.
Learn how to worship and pray in a brand new way. Things have changed now and seeking Him becomes a challenge, and, it can be easier.
Insomnia
Depression or anxiety, or both.
Fatigue, or stress.
Mood swings.
Doctors and meds.

Advice to Caregivers

I have to warn you, severe pain can make your dear one irrational. Pain can get so intense that you will find it impossible to relate to the sufferer. I once had a fierce battle with Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) in both forearms. Most doctors rate this as one of the worst types of pain to have.

Morphine didn’t help. Lynnie (my wife) could only watch and pray as the dragon kept attacking me, over and over. She watched me writhe in pain and she was pretty much helpless.

I was very angry, wildly rude and terribly mean. I was frustrated because I couldn’t communicate how bad the pain was. Over and over I tried to share how I was feeling, but words were not enough.

Some advance the idea that you need to find enough faith to be healed, but what about having enough faith to live in constant pain?

“Pain is no evil, unless it conquers us.”

Charles Kingsley

God Keeps Your Tears in a Bottle

by Linda L. Kruschke

I have cried many tears in my life.

If you have never cried, you can stop reading right now. But if you have shed tears for yourself or for others, or if like me you have shed some without even knowing why or where they came from, take heart. God knows the tears you have shed. Psalm 56:8 says so. Here are several translations of that wonderful verse:

Record my lament;
list my tears on your scroll —
are they not in your record? (NIV)

You have taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle
Are they not in Your book? (NASB)

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book. (NLT)

Write down my poem of sadness.
List my tears on your scroll.
Aren’t you making a record of them? (NIRV)

I love the image of God keeping all my tears in a bottle. I can envision shelves filled with bottles in Heaven, each with a name on it, and an accompanying scroll documenting every tear and lament. Or maybe it is just one huge bottle with all of our tears mingled together.

Today tears are being shed in dark rooms where children are being held as sex slaves, in Africa as people remain homeless and without food and water, in the United States as many remain jobless, in hospitals and on the streets where the mentally ill are forgotten, in homes around the world where people are spiritually lost and have no hope.

We live in a fallen and painful world.

Tragedies happen and humans are not always kind to one another. And so tears are shed. It is hard to fathom God collecting every single one, but He does. He notices and He records each tear and each lament.

The more I think about it, I like the idea that God has mingled all our tears together. The Psalm does refer to God’s “bottle” in the singular. And if He has collected every tear in that bottle, then mingled with our own are the tears of Jesus. In John 11, the apostle records this event: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35.)

In this passage, Jesus weeps when He learns of the death of Lazarus.

When they see Him weeping, the people say “See how he loved him!” John 11:36. But I don’t think Jesus was weeping because Lazarus was dead – He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Rather, I think He wept because of the compassion He felt for humanity as we weep over our own tragedies and losses. It is us that He loved so much that it brought Him to tears.

So if you weep today, remember that God is collecting your tears in His bottle, and mixing them with the tears of our dear Savior. Not only that, but God will deliver you from the final trial that lead to tears by redeeming your soul.

“For you, O LORD, have delivered
   my soul from death,
   my eyes from tears,
   my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD
   in the land of the living.“

Psalm 116:8-9 (NIV).

Category: pain