What is it About Pain that We Dislike So?

What is it about pain that we dislike so?

OK! I can hear it now!

“Dahhhh!”

“It hurts!”

You’re right! Pain is painful! And that’s enough to make it unwanted!

But is that the real reason we avoid it so adamantly?

Please understand I’m not about to advocate some radical new form of self-abuse. I’m not a masochistic hermit! I run from pain as fast as anyone else!

What I’m getting at is that there’s something more involved here than the pain. Bearing a child is probably one of the most painful things we humans do. Yet women continue to go about it excitedly. Very few people have died in a dentist’s chair. But who looks forward to their next dental procedure? We welcome the pain that brings another person into the world. We resist treatment vital to our own existence because it will hurt. We’re just not rational about this.

The power pain holds over us is fear. We are afraid of suffering.

Fear and pain serve similar functions in our lives. Just as pain is a built in warning system that protects us from injury – even death – so fear makes us wary of pending danger. The question, in either case, is “how serious is the threat?”

Several years ago I was Elk hunting in the Canadian Rockies on the border between Alberta and British Columbia. Because of an important commitment I had to leave the Camp for a day. My original plan was to return before dark. That plan was completely foiled when the 4X4 I was driving broke down. I had no alternative but to drive my own car back to Camp. The problem was that the car was not an “off road” vehicle. I would have to walk the 4 miles from the end of the road to our campsite. I will never forget that trek! This was rugged, mountainous country. We frequently saw signs of grizzlies in the area. Some of our men had actually seen the big bears. There were mountain lions out there. More times than I can recount I saw or heard things that I was sure were one or the other of those predators stalking me. Yes I had a rifle. But I’d left the ammunition in the 4X4. I was now the hunted and every stump the hunter. A tree branch would rub against another. The sound was like the growl of a bear. A twig would snap. The threat was growing with every step. No man was ever more relieved to see the light of a campfire than I was that night. Driving back over that 4 miles of road later in the Week I saw, by the light of day, the things that terrorized me in the night. I felt foolish! My cowardice was exposed by old dead tree stumps and lifeless branches rubbing against each other in the mountain breeze. I’d been reduced to a trembling boy certain that painful death lurked in those dreadful shadows; whimpering to his Father, “Pappa! I’mmmm scarrrred!”. I was afraid of things that posed no serious threat.

Corrie ten Boom lived in Holland during the Nazi occupation of her homeland. Her Family provided haven for Jewish friends fleeing the holocaust. The Gestapo uncovered their activity and they were sent to the dread Concentration camps. Some of them died. Miraculously Corrie survived the terrors of the Camps. Years later she wrote, “If God sends us on stony paths, He provides strong shoes.” If you’ve ever walked on rocky paths you know it can be painful. Sharp stones will hurt your feet; even through ordinary shoes. You can twist an ankle. You can slip and fall on loose shale. Life, Miss ten Boom is suggesting, is like that stony path. Jesus said that “living in this world you’ll have hard times.” Even following Him we’ll come on “stony paths.” If we’ll keep on walking, Corrie promises, painful though it may be, we’ll discover we’ve been given shoes that are strong enough to protect our feet, brace our ankles, and grip the firm base of even the slipperiest terrain. The catch, though, is that it’s only as we follow Jesus off the safe road that we get the “strong shoes.”

Jesus said, “Anyone who hears what I say and puts it into practice – who follows me on my way – will be like a man who builds his house on a rock. The winds, and rain – the storms of life – will beat on that house. But it will not fall.” People who follow Jesus develop character. Like “strong shoes” and “rock solid foundations” they are able to withstand rocky trails and weather severe storms. Few things intimidate them. They have learned that just as it was for Jesus, “who endured the cross,” – pain beyond experience or imagination – “joy comes in the morning.”

Fear not! “What can’t destroy you will only make you stronger!” John Perkins, a black Pastor who suffered great pain and humiliation because of his race, said that. He knew that if your Leader routinely raises the dead nothing can destroy you!

Fear not! There’s no serious threat to immortals.

“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! … This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training …” (Hebrews 12:2 – 7 THE MESSAGE)