When You Have Pain
[column submitted May 6, 2003, written for Community Press newspapers]

Once, when I was working in a steel fabricating plant, I caught my finger in a punch press. The bone was broken and tore through the skin. My father-in-law, an engineer at the same place, took me to the hospital and asked me about what happened.

"When I first looked at my finger," I explained, "I thought it was just a bad cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding. But then, it kept stinging." "Yeah," he said matter-of-factly, "pain is a pretty sure sign that something’s wrong." I laughed at that sage observation.

Ironically, about ten years later, my father-in-law ignored months of constant pain before finally seeing a doctor. By the time he did, it was too late. He had cancer and lived only four more weeks. Pain really is a sign that something’s wrong.

This is as true of emotional, psychological, or relational pain as it is of the physical variety. And just as it’s smart to look for help when we have physical pain, we should also look for help when we confront these other sorts of discomforts. When we have emotional, psychological, or relational pain, we need to do three things. We need to look in, look out, and look up.

We need to look in and see what we're doing to contribute to our own pain in life. People who enroll in Twelve Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous call this taking a "fearless moral inventory" in which they honestly look at themselves, faults and all. Even if the immediate cause of pain is, for example, an insensitive, uncaring spouse, people must look at themselves to see why they become and live with the role of victim. This sort of honesty is a key to healing, just as an accurate diagnosis leads a doctor to make the right prescription.

In Old Testament times, King David had an affair with another man’s wife and then had the man murdered. After a period of dishonest concealment, David was confronted for his sins. He confessed that he was in the wrong. David came to know that failing to look inside oneself causes pain. He writes in Psalm 32, "Happy are those...in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long...my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer" (Psalm 32:2-4).

We also need to look out. When we have pain, we need advice from trusted people in order to experience healing. That might mean going to a psychotherapist, a pastor, a friend, or better yet, to many different such people. Proverbs 11:14 says, "Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances."

Finally, we need to look up. A few weeks ago, I was going through a painful time. I was at wit’s end, not knowing what to say or do. This had been going on for several months. It finally dawned on me what I needed to do. I found a quiet place and had a heart-to-heart talk with God. (Some people call that prayer.) I told God everything: I recapped the situation, named what I’d tried to do to remedy things, listed ways I’d contributed to the pain of it all, and told God just how helpless I was feeling. Finally, I said to God, "Lord, I’ve been so incapable of changing things for the better. I just give the situation to You. I can’t handle it any more. You’ll need to fix it."

While the painful situation hasn’t completely turned around, I can say that the very next day, I detected marked improvements.

When God walked the earth in the person of Jesus Christ, He said, "Ask and you will receive..." (John 16:24). Why would we want to carry pain on our own shoulders, when simply for the asking, God is willing to bear it with us?

If you're dealing with pain in your life, it's a pretty sure sign that something's wrong. You need to remember that simple formula: Look in. Look out. Look up. God can use these steps to set you down the path to healing.

[Mark Daniels is pastor of Friendship Church. You’re invited to worship at Friendship any Sunday.]