If a patient visits the doctor with chest pain, the first thing a good doctor will want to do is diagnose the cause of the pain. Just prescribing aspirin isn’t good healthcare. The chest pain needs exploring, examining and analysing. Only then can it be treated. While sympathy is a valuable virtue in a doctor, a patient wouldn’t and shouldn’t be pleased if all they get from a doctor is sympathy.
In a similar way, as a pastor, my job is to help people interpret their pain. Pain itself – though very unpleasant – doesn’t tell us much. It hurts. It’s uncomfortable. It’s upsetting. We don’t want it. Often, we just want it to go away! But good spiritual care requires interpretation of our pain.
But we live at a time when there is a lot of reluctance to interpret pain. Instead, we are encouraged to present our pain as an explanation. For example, “the reason I’m not obeying that particular biblical command is because I’m hurting”. Our pain becomes a conversation-stopper rather than a conversation-starter. So, the Bible tells us to “weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). It tells us our tears are stored up in God’s bottle and recorded in his book (Psalm 56:8). But our tears are not to stop us sowing (Psalm 126:5), praying (Heb 5:7), admonishing (Acts 20:31), sending difficult correspondence (2 Cor 2:4), and worshipping the Lord Jesus (Luke 7:38,44). Our pain isn’t a trump-card that overrides explicit biblical commands or releases us from our moral duties.
Now, pain confuses the mind; it jumbles up our thoughts. Pain provokes anger, self-defence, lashing out. It causes us to hide, and retreat. So, this process of interpreting pain isn’t like interpreting a text of Shakespeare. Interpreting pain isn’t an academic exercise, where you sit down with pen and paper and write a carefully composed essay, which will get marked. Nor is it a closed, presumptuous reading of people’s pain. Job’s comforters were quick to interpret Job’s pain, and had locked-down, water-tight explanations, which were plain wrong. Interpreting pain requires wisdom, discernment, and prayer (Prov 20:5; 2 Kings 4:27; James 1:5).
But the Bible does call us to interpret our pain. It invites us to see it as “discipline” from our loving Father (Heb 12:5-9), designed to “train” us. It presents pain as “trials” that are sent to “test” our “faith” (James 1:2-4). It tells us that some pain is a consequence of our sinful choices (Psalm 32:3-4), some pain is a consequence of our godliness (2 Tim 3:12). Other pain is not a consequence of anything, but an opportunity for God to showcase his glory (John 9:3). Determining how to “read” our pain spiritually is as hard as a doctor figuring out the cause of chest-pain.
Rather than just react to pain, the Bible calls us to act towards it. We’re not to just be subject to our pain, blown about in every direction by it. Rather we’re to respond to it, and subject it to the light of God’s word.
In fact, whether we realise it or not, we are always, already interpreting it. The question is: are those interpretations accurate? Are they biblical? The pictures we use to describe our pain are themselves mini acts of interpretation. Maybe your pain is a Leviathan-like monster that God has unleashed on you, attacking you remorselessly (e.g. Job 41). Maybe your pain is coming from an aggressor, who is victimising you, and you’re unjustly attacked (Psalm 3:1). But lots of times we use unbiblical forms of interpretation. For example, it’s common for people to interpret their pain as meaning-less. “This situation, this trial, this battle is point-less and hope-less. So, I don’t see why I shouldn’t just give up doing what’s right”. But there is meaning in it. That meaning may be hidden from you – and it often is. But our heavenly Father has a purpose in it. Good pastoring is not quick to slap interpretive labels on people’s pain. But it does desire to stand with the sufferer to help them think, and act biblically towards their suffering.
Pain is horrible. None of us like it. But it is also unavoidable this side of glory (Rev 21:4). So, what pastors are here to do is to help you interpret it. That’s not the same as understanding it. We can’t take away the mystery of anybody’s pain. But without interpretation, our pain will get the better of us. Rather than let our pain swallow up Scripture, we’re to let Scripture interpret and shape our pain, not to make it go away, nor to give neat, finished answers, but to draw us closer to Jesus, our Redeemer, who is working it for our good (Rom 8:28).
