Spiritual Aspirin

You don't have to be a child psychologist to recognize what a highly effective motivator pain is. Give any little kid a hammer, and I shudder to think of the results, were it not for pain. "Oh, look what happens when I drop this hammer on my toe! The skin busts open and red gooey stuff comes out. I wonder what would happen if I dropped it on my other big toe!" And it wouldn't end there, you know. "Wowsa! This is really cool! Look what happens when I hit baby Suzy over the head with the hammer!"

In real life, of course, there is pain. And when the little kid drops the hammer on his toe, the "coolness" of the special effects is adamantly overridden by his entire body screaming at him, "You doofus! You have hurt me!" And somewhere deep in his psyche, wisdom develops, in the form of, "Don't drop a hammer on your toe ever again." When he drops the hammer on your toe, and you bellow, deep in his psyche, further wisdom develops, in the form of, "Any toe–not just mine–on which the hammer drops will hurt. Don't drop hammers on toes. Period."

In fact, I would say that experiencing pain is one of the habits of highly effective people. It can motivate us to adjust our attitudes and moderate our behavior. Unfortunately, pain, by its very nature, can also motivate us to find ways to become numb to it. Aspirin works great. For "spiritual" people, one of the most popular brands of aspirin is, "You (the person who inflicted this pain on me) have sinned."

The reason this brand is so popular is that it really works! It eliminates all personal responsibility for my pain (which is in itself extremely painful) and it allows me to maintain my childish, Santa Claus–like image of God. It works only to the extent that any aspirin works, however. It works to numb the pain; it doesn't work to heal the wound.

Sometimes the person who hurt me was sinning. Harping on that won't help me a bit, though. If I want to be healed of my wound, and if I want to become better instead of bitter, I must seek the Lord for healing. I must be willing to acknowledge that I, too, have hurt others. I must be open to the possibility that I was hurt because I was doing something stupid, was butting into someone else's business, or perhaps blatantly disobeying God. And here is the really painful part: I must be willing to look at my pain as having been inflicted by God Himself. (If you love God, that part is excruciating.)

You see, if my pain was caused entirely by your sin, the only effect of my pain will be barriers. If it is all your fault, there is no need for me to change, and no point in my changing.

Feeling the pain isn't a pleasure, but it's still good.

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