Scripture

Romans 12:12 NIV

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Consider

Pain is a sure indicator that we have been somehow injured. Physical pain alerts us to damage in our body and the need to take immediate action. Whether the result of physical trauma, stress, or disease, pain captures our attention and motivates us to do something to relieve it.

Similarly, emotional pain tells us that we have suffered an injury to the heart. The cause might be personal betrayal by a friend or someone’s impersonal act that nevertheless hurts us because it aggravates what is most tender and vulnerable in us. Emotional affliction feels as real and severe as any physical wounding, with the same desperate urgency to relieve it.

In our efforts to find relief, we face two choices. We can ask God to help us carry the pain and trust him to bring something good from our suffering. Or we can let our pain turn into poison that seeps into our attitudes and actions, turning us away from each other and from God.

Poisonous pain is corrosive. It is bitterness that eats away at our peace and tempts us into evil ways unworthy of a follower of Christ. Pain that has turned poisonous prompts its own relief by inflicting pain on others and damaging reputations. It gossips, maligns, manipulates, retaliates, and stirs up rage and hatred.

The apostle Paul warns believers about this corrosive threat in Ephesians 4:31:

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Notice that Paul does not say, get rid of all pain. Pain is not the problem. The problem is in allowing sin to control our pain and generate poisonous attitudes and behaviors that can only cause further harm.

Forgiving the people who hurt us does not necessarily bring freedom from pain. In forgiving we may have to accept the pain of a loss that can never be recovered. But in forgiving we let go of the poisonous pain that blocks the Spirit’s healing work in our lives. When we turn to God in our pain, God can help us carry it. Because our God is so good, he may reshape our hurtful experience into blessing that brings us into deeper communion with him and teaches us how to love the person who injured us.

Pray

Good Father, I am not skilled at handling emotional pain. I either hide from it or I let it consume my thoughts and sour my attitudes. Please help me to carry the weight of my affliction so that it does not force me into evil ways. Cleanse my heart from poisonous anger and bitterness. Give me faith to see the ways you would use my pain to make me more like Jesus and obedient to your rule of love.

Reflect

Psalm 37:7-9; John 16:33; Romans 8:28

Ponder

What sort of injury is most likely to turn poisonous in my heart? Why am I so tender in this area?