What Pain Teaches You: Lesson 1: When Pain Comes

1. The most obvious observation, pain hurts!

2. Definition from Webster,

(1) “Localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder or disease or injury.”

(2) Basic bodily sensation, induced by noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort and typically leading to evasive actions.”

3. Two kinds of pain.

a. Physical pain. “Her pains came upon her” (I Sam. 4:19).

b. Mental pain. “It was painful to realize the wicked purpose” (Ps. 73:16, ELT).

c. Inter-relationship. Your physical pain causes worry, fear, grief, and anguish. Your mental pain leads to all types of physical reactions, i.e., headaches, nausea, etc.

d. C. S. Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain (1940) about physical pain, when his wife died he wrote A Grief Observed (1961), about mental pain.

4. Kinds of physical pain.

a. Acute pain, short term with easily identifiable causes.

b. Chronic pain, last longer than normal causes, i.e., it has outlived its purpose and no longer helps the body prevent injury.

c. Cutaneous pain, injury to the skin, i.e., localized pain.

d. Somatic pain, from ligaments, bones, blood vessels, i.e., dull poorly localized pain.

e. Visceral pain, from the body’s viscera or organs. Hard to diagnose.

f. Phantom pain, from a limb that has been lost, but pain still signals the brain.

g. Neuropathy pain from injury to nerve system.

5. Kinds of mental pain.

a. Physical death. “David mourned for his son every day” (II Sam. 13:37).

b. Loss of dreams or plans. “When the people heard (couldn’t go to Canaan) . . . they mourned” (Ex. 3:4).

c. Memory. “I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days” (Neh. 1:4).

d. Conviction of sin. “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep” (John 4:9).

e. Repentance of sin. “When ye fasted and mourned . . . even those seventy years” (Zech. 7:5).

f. Over lost life. “And you mourn at last, when your flesh and your body are consumed” (Prov. 5:11).

g. Deprivation. “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be . . .” (Rom. 8:18).

h. Identificational pain. “One member suffers, all the members suffer” (I Cor. 12:26).

6. Truths about pain.

a. Pain as punishment. “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow . . . in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Gen. 3:16).

b. Pain is inevitable. “Affliction does not come from the dust . . . yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:6-7).

c. Pain corrects us to do right. “A man chasteneth his son so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee” (Deut. 8:5). “Happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty” (Job 5:17).

d. Pain is one of God’s ministries to me. “When he hath tried me; I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:14).

e. God will help us in our pain. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Ps. 23:4).

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isa. 41:10).

f. We must endure suffering. “Thou therefore endure hardness (suffer hardship) as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Tim. 2:3).

g. You have a duty to the hurting. “Weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15). “suffer with them as though you are suffering, share the sorrow of those being mistreated, for you know what they are going through” (Heb. 13:3, ELT).

h. You get God’s grace and power. “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (II Cor.

12:9).

7. Attitudes to assume.

a. Since suffering is inevitable, don’t think it is unusual. It happens to all.

b. Don’t immediately think God is punishing you for a specific sin.

c. Pain protects you, for the body shuts down when facing damage.

d. For some, their suffering is tied to their sin. “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5:14).

e. Remember, even Christ had to suffer. “The sufferings of Christ” (I Peter 1:11).

f. Don’t be ashamed if you suffer because of your faith (I Peter 4:16).

g. Since there is divine purpose for pain, learn from it.

h. Commit your soul to God when suffering. “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (I Peter 4:19).

i. You will leave this life in pain. “The pains of death” (Acts 2:24; Ps. 116:3).