Pain Perspective
Pt. 2 - Pain Plots
You will remember that there are only three things that are certain in life . . . death, taxes, and then we added pain to the list because we are in Genesis 3:19 that because of our own fallenness we will be: “be working in pain all your life long.”
So pain is promised and it is real. Our pain is caused by our fallenness but the hope we have is in our fatherdness. God, in light of promised pain, then says “I am ever present help in the time of need!” So, although pain is promised so is His presence. So we struggle with perspective not because we believe God causes pain (we understand the source of our pain) but rather we falter because we struggle with the idea that God uses our pain!
So we talked last week about the fact that pain is a pervert. It causes us to pervert the picture about our past. We pain perverted pictures and have a tendency to call bondage freedom. Pain causes us to have selective amnesia! In our pain clouded perspective we pervert the season we begged, prayed, fasted to get out of into a season of pleasure. Pain causes us to forget the details. Pain causes us to forget reality! Then we talked about how pain will cause you to get angry at God and those He sends to help you! So we end up attacking those who are assigned to assist. So we tend to run to relief instead of relationships!
So today I want us to continue to expose pain and get some perspective so that although pain is real, present, and excruciating we can still navigate it successfully. Join me in another painful passage.
Text: 1 Kings 19:1-10
1-2 Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: “The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you’ll be as dead as any one of those prophets.” 3-5 When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: “Enough of this, God! Take my life—I’m ready to join my ancestors in the grave!” Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush.
Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, “Get up and eat!” 6 He looked around and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep. 7 The angel of God came back, shook him awake again, and said, “Get up and eat some more—you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.” 8-9 He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep. Then the word of God came to him: “So Elijah, what are you doing here?” 10 “I’ve been working my heart out for the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,” said Elijah. “The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.”
This is an account that we have talked about before in a series called “Framed”. We talked about how the enemy will try to frame our minds. However, I want to revisit this passage because it also reveals some things to us about how the enemy uses pain.
Elijah has been used by God. His anointing on display. He has called a drought into effect for three years. He was used to bring provision to a widow during the drought. He brought the widow’s son back to life. He has a jaw dropping victory over 450 prophets of Baal and when fire has fallen from heaven he single handedly kills them all. He outruns a chariot. This is a powerful man of God. And yet a man that didn’t have any pain perspective.
Ahab reports to his wife Jezebel what Elijah has done and she sends Elijah a nasty private message. She blasts him and threatens him. In response, Elijah immediately exits the victory dance, the celebration of God’s faithfulness and has a one huge pain party. He runs for his life. It is in this mad dash of fear that we learn some things about pain.
A couple of free ones . . . You should never make decisions when you are tired because you will almost always make the wrong one. You are often the most vulnerable right after a victory. Why is it that people in pain seem to always run to dry places rather than places full of life?
What we learn in this passage about pain is that pain plots! We know that God has plot for our pain. However, we also know that the enemy uses pain to plot against us. So let’s expose the plot of the enemy in pain. The enemy uses pain to move us toward three deadly things. Read his statement again. When God asks him why he is hiding under a bush Elijah responds, “I have been working myself to death. The people have abandoned you and me. I am the only one left.” So pain causes him to:
1. Complain
I have worked so hard. The people have abandoned us. I am the only one left. His pain causes him to turn into a whiner! You almost want to read it with a whine in your voice. I mean think about it . . . he has just seen and been used to orchestrate some of the most incredible miracles recorded in Scripture and now like a school child he wants to sulk and complain cause “nobody likes me, this is too hard, nobody will play with me!” Complaints.
Complaining is cancerous! The enemy knows that if he can get your perspective to become fuzzy due to pain that you will be forget about all that God has done for you and you will begin to complain. We have a pretty clear account of what happens when people complain. Go back and read what happens when the Children of Israel complain when leaving Egypt. Complaining causes them to circle for 40 years.
God and people don’t typically respond favorably to complainers. God and people don’t mind people that make their petitions known, their needs known but complainers are avoided.
"Complaining is the language of the hopeless! Bishop Michael Pitts in Mexico City
When we complain we do so because our perspective has changed. Complaint is direct result of taking our eyes off of God. Elijah didn’t complain when he looked to God. He complained when he looked to Jezebel.
In the book “Springs In The Valley, the writer tells of a man who found a barn which contained the seeds that Satan sows into the human heart. He found that the seeds of complaining were quite numerous, and he learned that these seeds could be made to grow most anywhere.....but when Satan was questioned he reluctantly admitted that there was one place where he could never get them to thrive. And where is that asked the man? Sadly Satan replied, In the heart of a grateful man.
Elijah’s pain plotted against him to cause him to look at what he didn’t have rather than what he did have! Philippians 2:14 commands us to do everything without murmuring or complaining. But I am sick. Everything. But I am hurt. Everything. But I am broke. Everything! There is no wiggle room in this command. Pain causes to demand a pass on this command.
2. Compare
Elijah then moves out of complaining and begins to compare. They have all abandoned You God. Only I have remained faithful. I am the only one that cares this much about You God. I am the only one that serves this faithfully. I am the only one that gives this much time, this much money, this much money. Out of his pain, Elijah begins to compare himself to everyone else.
Pain can cause you to play the comparison card and get yourself in trouble. No one has it as bad as I do. No one works as hard as I do. No one suffers like I do. Paul tells us that only the foolish compare themselves to others. Pain can produce pride. It is usually in reverse. Instead of being the best of the best we allow pride in and we become the worst of the worst. I am the sickest. I am the most hurt. I am the most abused. I am the most used.
3. Check Out
Elijah checks out. He runs for the hills. He hides in isolation. His pain causes him to withdraw. He ends up alone. The most miserable place in the world to be is to be in pain and to be alone. Pain is endurable when you are with pain partners. It is when you allow pain to isolate you that you are in danger of complete and total destruction. If we fail to gain perspective pain can cause us to pull out and withdraw from every meaningful relationship, ministry and lose every opportunity God has for us.
Elijah leaves behind his servant. He checks out on the one assigned to serve him.
