"Finding God on your iPod: iHurt"
Dean AngellSeptember 30/October 1, 2006
Do you have any idea how many songs have been written about pain and suffering and injustice and hurt down through the ages. Literally millions I am sure – over 1000’s of years. In fact one whole book of the Bible is filled with 150 songs, which were written about 3000 years ago. Basically poems set to music and many of these psalms were written around this theme of pain and suffering. Let me read you a few.
Psalm 143 – Psalm 102
People of faith have been wondering and thinking and singing about pain for 1000’s of years as we are today.
Let me read three definitions to you – to sort of set the tone. Webster says this about hurt.
Hurt - A state of physical or mental suffering: affliction, agony, anguish, misery, pain, woe, and wretchedness.
Suffering - The condition of bearing pain, distress, or hurt
Fair – Just impartial according to the rules . . .
Well folks, I tried to find a clever way to ease into this talk on hurt and suffering and how not one of us is immune from pain in our lives, but what I found, is that there isn’t really a way to do that. There is no way to sugar coat this message because the truth is that life isn’t fair. And things like cancer don’t play by the rules and there is no way that abuse is just or impartial. And most of us, if we’ve been around for even a few years, have come to understand that life is directly attached to pain and that there is only a few givens in life . . . besides taxes and death and one of those givens is suffering and the hurt it causes.
Now, I won’t spend too much time on this 1st part, but if you and I started making a list of what created emotional or mental or physical pain in our lives it could be a pretty long, but very familiar list. Meaning there’s lots of stuff that causes us to hurt in life, but we also know that list pretty intimately and we can recite it with ease. Let me give you some examples of what our lists might look like.
That injury to our knees that knocked us out of sports during high school or college and the dreams that faded when that happened.
An alcoholic parent whose mood swings and behaviour should never have been seen by a child.
That first big financial loss that really made you reel back from life. Or hearing the doctor say, “it’s cancer” or “that’s hereditary” or “you’ve got to have this operation” and the anxiety those words bring. Or how about dealing with years of abuse whether it’s in your past or ongoing. Or how about this one, being stuck in a job that seems to drain the life out of you. Or being stuck in a marriage that is slowly killing you emotionally and you can’t see the end of it. Or how about our struggle with our addictions whether it’s a secret addiction or not have you ever registered the amount of hurt your addiction is causing you, or the people around you.
And if these examples didn’t hit your life, there are probably 4 more pages that could be written that I didn’t even get to. The truth of the matter is that life is very closely tied to pain and suffering and if that hasn’t been your story yet – be thankful, but also be aware that no one is immune from pain or suffering. And I don’t want to make it seem like life is just full of bad luck or that it’s all just the luck of the draw and we have no control over it. That’s not really true – a lot of times our greatest pain is self-imposed and just living with the regret and hurt of some of our bad choices is the worst suffering of all.
Suffice it to say – the darkness of pain is a reality that we will all come face to face with at some point in our lives.
So – everybody glad they come to church today?
Like I said there isn’t a nice or a funny way to say this stuff and I know why we don’t talk about it to much, but to move from hurt to healing in our lives which I think is the goal - to move from hurt to healing we’ve got to know what’s causing the pain. And so creating that hurt list is sometimes hard to do, but absolutely necessary if your goal is to deal with it . . .
Let’s take this another step. You know once that list of hurts is in our hands and we have felt it to the very depths of our souls, once we know what that list is and can name everything on it there are several options that lie in front of us – (as to what to do with that list).
Well there are actually only 3 options really. We can -
Deny it . . . or we can – Hide from it . . . or Accept it.
Deny
Usually as human beings until we get to the correct option. We tend to wallow in the mud a bit. You see when pain hits our lives whether it’s just the realities of life, or whether it’s self imposed hurt the first thing we do is kinda deny that it’s real. Or that it actually hurts us as bad as it does and I don’t know why this is so true of us human beings.
We’re supposed to be more aware of ourselves than we are because when we deny that our pain is real well then there is no way to deal with it. And so if just sits in our lives sometimes for years like a festering sore.
You know we’re all so good at denial especially when the pain isn’t too acute or harsh. See denial happens most often with the things on our hurt lists that aren’t at the top. Denial happens most with the things that we think we can manage without delving to deep into the mess that created them. Let me explain this a bit.
Stay with me here. It works like this, say I have abuse in my past or I have problem with gambling or you struggle with depression and in a moment of clarity early one morning or late one night we get it, we know that one of those is on our hurt list. And we know that there is a certain level of pain attached to it. And maybe in that moment of clarity we may even know that we’ve got to deal with that issue to be healthy and whole in life, but our first response isn’t that. Our first response is to deny that the pain even exists or that it’s done as much damage as it has and so we automatically think if I open up this wound even more – it’s probably gonna hurt more. And if I mess with this thing too much that scar will start to bleed and then it will hurt worse. And instinctively we know that in order to get something off our hurt list we have to go through it again and sorta relive that hurt to unearth the roots of what that pain is stemming from. Get that? And there’s something in us that doesn’t want to do that, and so our natural response, is to simply deny that it’s a real deal, or we deny that it needs to be at the top of our hurt priority list. And so we’ll deny for like 20 years that our angry outbursts and mood swings or bouts with depression stem from the pain of abuse in our childhood or we’ll deny that we have a problem with drinking even through we know it’s caused pain for those closest to us for years.
We’ll deny it because in our minds it’s easier to deny then it is to deal with our hurt.
And you know what? That’s true it is easier in the short term to deny instead of dealing and I fully understand why we do that, but long term letting that pain sit there is asking for trouble because or festering would causes infections an infections cause all kinds of other complications if it stays unattended.
And so the longer we live in denial the greater the chance that that pain will increase not decrease and it will become unmanageable.
So that’s the first option we usually choose when we try to deal with our pain lists . . . to deny and then comes option two. If we don’t deny . . . we hide and this is probably the most natural human response. It’s in our nature to hide when we are hurt.
Ever watch an animal that’s gotten physically hurt – a dog or a bull or a deer . . . their natural response to pain is one of two things – to either lash out or to hide. And if left to themselves they will hide every time. They’ll find a dark, quiet, comfortable place to lie down and lick their wounds.
Well we’re no different when pain comes our way our first response after we deny is to hide in order to see if the pain will heal itself. And there’s a million ways we try to hide our pain and some of those ways are even applauded by society and some aren’t, but they’re all equally unhealthy Let me explain.
See, lots of folks sensing the pain of something like abuse rising to the top of their hurt list will hide from that pain in the bottom of a bottle and they’ll try to wash the memories away by numbing that pain with booze or drugs.
The song we just heard from Johnny Cash describes the choices he made in his life to hide instead of dealing with his pain.
Whiskey Lullaby – was a #1 country song a year or so ago. It’s an unbearably sad story of alcohol and rejection and suicide . . . (wow – all that in a country song.) But it made #1 – because it’s real. Hiding our pain is a very serious thing.
But there are other ways we hide as well – that aren’t so sad in the eyes of this society we live in. Like the business man who hides from the pain of growing up in a home where money limited options or the one who hides from the pain of growing up hearing every day that he wouldn’t succeed or wasn’t good enough. That business man often hides in his success and he works his knuckles to the bone and he hides from that pain in his business suit and at his office and in his pursuit for more and the only way to deal with the pain from his childhood is to hide behind more success, and more money, and more rungs on the ladder. And all the while his issues are still on the list. But everyone applauds him because it doesn’t look like he’s hiding; it looks like he’s successful. But he is hiding it’s just a different vice – a different Band-Aid than a bottle of whiskey.
And you know folks – my goal today isn’t to give a bunch of answers my goal is to simply help us begin to uncover some of the areas of our lives that need to be healed and one of the best ways I know of, to move from hurting to healing is to recognize when we’re in denial and to realize that hiding from our pain is not the answer to healing it.
So, first we deny – then we hide – but eventually we only have one option left and that’s to accept that it’s real when whatever our issue is, gets painful enough to rise to the top of our list.
When that pain gets acute enough – we are forced to deal with it.
This proverb hangs on the wall of my office.
“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.” Let me give you a personal example.
I didn’t treat my body as well as I should have when I was young, so I’ve got some angle and knee issues and I’ve had some broken leg bones and tissue scars and because of all that, I’ve got some back problems because my ankles and knees and neck are connected to my back.
So when I was like 28 I went to the Dr. and to a physio and they both said the very same thing – lose weight. I was 40 lbs heavier then. Lose weight and develop a better set of core muscles (stomach-back strengthening). Well (confession) – I didn’t do anything about it for 10 years. Why? Because the pain wasn’t so great that Tylenol wouldn’t fix it.
But about 2 years ago the pain got worse and I realized that my behavior needed to change because the pain of staying the same was greater than the pain of losing some weight and doing some sit ups. And you know what – the Dr.’s 10 years before were right. But hear this, my first step to getting rid of my back pain wasn’t starting to jog or to get into shape or even to eat less the first step to dealing with my back pain was to stop denying that it wasn’t there and stop hiding from it by taking Tylenol. I had to accept it and then change my behavior.
And some how after I had accepted that the pain was real and quit hiding from it . . . changing my behavior wasn’t that hard to do.
You know folks, there is a corner that we must make to get our pain list dealt with, and that corner is about acceptance, which leads to a whole other level of healing.
I want you to listen to a couple sets of verses from the Bible and I’m intentionally not going to explain them not because there isn’t time or because I don’t want to. No – I’m not gonna explain them because they need to be experienced not explained. So look these up at home and figure it out . . . there’s healing in these words.
Romans 5:3b-5a The Apostle Paul takes healing to a whole other level.
We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us,
James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything
Rejoice in your suffering; consider it pure joy – whenever you face trials because as you accept your suffering and pain . . . healing will come to you in all sorts of ways.
Can I be honest with you? I hate those verses – but they are absolutely true. Those truths are some of the hardest and greatest lessons to learn in life.
That to somehow begin to deal with our pain to start to heal from the hurts of life begins with open acceptance that the pain and hurts and scars are real.
And not only acceptance, but also knowledge that a healed hurt is better than a hidden one.
Hear that.
And that as we accept the personal responsibility of dealing with our own pain and hurt and realize that nobody else is gonna do that for us as we accept that responsibility and apply faith to that all kinds of other great words like perseverance and maturity and character will come to us as we are healing.
Now – let me talk about faith in this process just for a minute.
Here’s the thing – just like we’ve said these last 2 weeks in this series when we wanted to conquer fear we said moving from fearful to fearless required an actual step of faith to make that transition. To engage our faith in the midst of our fears and then last week – hope - we said that to move from hopeless to hopeful required a step of faith as well to engage faith in our pursuit of hope.
Well folks this week is no different.
If we want to move from hurting to healing it will require us to engage our faith in that process.
Let me give you a clear truth you can count on and rest in if you’re hurting. And if you are at the point of acceptance and you’re tired of hiding if you desire to engage faith – to find healing then soak these next statements up.
God’s biggest desire is to bring healing into our lives.
Let me be very clear on this and it may be obvious, but please hear this.
God does not want to see us continue in our pain and he doesn’t want to see us hurt without healing closely following behind. No He is a God of healing and He is a refuge for us to go to when we are in trouble.
Psalm 91:1, 2, 4, and 14
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield . . . . . . "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
Psalm 103: 8, 11, and 13
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love . . . For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him . . . As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who follow him;
People, God’s only motive in our lives is Love – and His only desire is for us to be whole and complete and to walk through this life with enough grace and strength from Him to be healed as we walk.
So people never doubt God’s ability to hear your heart and to feel with you in your pain and never doubt His love for you. Love is who God is and our best interests are always on His mind no matter what pain we are walking through.
Folks, our goal this weekend is pretty simple. We wanted to help uncover some of the pain in our lives and then allow you ways to engage your faith as you move from hurt to healing. And that’s how we want to end this hour – by giving you opportunities to apply God’s grace and healing to your life.
So – we’re gonna listen as our music team does one more song – awesome tune.
And as we close . . .
I want to give you a couple ways to respond to God.
A couple ways for you to practically engage your faith and move towards healing:
1. Listen to the words and ask God to help you to accept where the pain comes from. Quit hiding – quit denying. Get Him to reveal the pain.
2. Communications cards – fill out a prayer request – I’ll pray for you individually.
