Our 4 Postures in Pain toward God

When we’re in pain, we often take one of four postures toward God. See if any of these sound familiar. Personally, I’ve done them all.

(1) Hiding from God

Sometimes in our pain, the shame ramps up, and we do anything to not be exposed.

Adam and Eve are the poster children for hiding from God in shame, after they ate the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3. They clothed themselves to hide from each other. And they hid from God. Their shame was in overdrive.

Shame’s lie is, “I am uniquely and fatally flawed. Uniquely – no one’s as bad as me. And fatally – there’s no fixing me.”

Both are lies. In the words of Tenth Avenue North, “you are more than the mess you made.” I write more about this here, but we are not what we do.

The beautiful thing about the Genesis 3 story is God’s response. God didn’t burst into the Garden, tearing off Adam and Eve’s fig leaves, with a vengeful cry of, “I know what you did!” Yet we hide from God because that’s what we expect, and what our shame fears the most.

Instead, he asks questions: “Where are you?” And when Adam admits he was hiding in shame, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree I told you not to?” Then when Adam performs the world’s first blame-shift by throwing Eve under the bus, God asks Eve, “What have you done?”

[Aside: I have a post here, with a 1-page worksheet, about starting a daily practice of answering 4 specific questions God asks us.]

Now, yes, God knew the answers to his questions before he asked them. He wasn’t asking for information. He was asking for relationship. He was asking for connection. His questions were an invitation to Adam and Eve to connect with him in the middle of their sin and their pain.

And, yes, God gives consequences to all involved, Adam, Eve, and the serpent. But it’s fascinating to me who didn’t get a question. The serpent. Because God doesn’t want relationship with him. That ship sailed when Satan rebelled against God and fell from Heaven.

But God asks us questions because he’s inviting us to stop hiding. Into relationship. To bring all of our sin and pain to him in an intimate, connected, relationship. We have a special opportunity that fallen angels do not. I encourage you to take it.

(2) Running from God

Jonah is the poster child for this one. There are times when we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what God wants us to do. Or maybe it’s something we know is wrong that we want to do anyway.

Sometimes we know what God wants, and, like Jonah, we intentionally head in the other direction. Running from God is telling him, “No, I’m doing it my way.”

You know Jonah’s story. God told him to go preach repentance to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, one of Israel’s enemies (who would later destroy the upper kingdom of Israel). Jonah got on a boat going the other direction, was thrown overboard during a storm, and was swallowed by a whale (ok, technically, a huge fish).

It’s a misconception that the whale spit Jonah up on the beach of Nineveh. Jonah actually got spit up back in Israel, where he started. But don’t take my word for it:

• Jonah 3:1-2 – The Lord tells Jonah (again!) to go to Nineveh. Why would he have to go there if he was already there?
• Jonah 3:3 – “Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh.” Again, the Bible wouldn’t record Jonah going to Nineveh if he was already there.

God gave Jonah a do-over. God had the fish barf him right back where he started from, so Jonah and God could try this again.

When we bolt, in his love and longing for us, God often allows painful situations to bring us back to a place where we can try it again.

And in Jonah chapter 4, when Jonah is angry and arguing with God, God asks Jonah questions.

• “Have you any right to be angry?” (asked twice in slightly different ways)
• “Shouldn’t I care about that great city (Nineveh)?”

God doesn’t rebuke Jonah. He invites Jonah into a conversation by asking questions.

If you are running from God, I encourage you to have the conversation with God. Bring all your fear, bring your pain, bring your anger. It’s ok. God can take it. He would rather have the difficult, ugly, messy conversation than see you bolt.

(3) Fighting with God

When I first sat down to read the Book of Psalms, I dreaded it. I thought it would be the most boring book in the whole Bible. “Reading the song lyrics on the jacket without the music. Swell.” But now, having read them, Psalms is my favorite book in the whole Bible.

Because the Psalms are so real life, so raw. The Psalms are more descriptive of real life than prescriptive. God gets us.

Here are some excerpts (my paraphrases, but you get the point):

• Psalm 2: Why do the nations plot in vain against God? (Anybody following the news lately?)
• Psalm 3: Everyone’s against me!
• Psalm 6: I’m worn out from groaning, all night long I flood my bed with tears.
• Psalm 10: Where are you God? Why are you hiding in times of trouble?
• Psalm 13: How long, God? Will you forget me forever?!?
• Psalm 51: Forgive me God!
• Psalm 77: When I remember God, I groan! (This psalm was portrayed so beautifully in Season 3, Episode 8, of The Chosen.)

And so many more. Yet in all of these desperate psalms, God meets the writer. In the middle of the pain, and the abuse, and the ugliness, and the sin, and the hurt. God wants to walk with us through it.

“Conflict is growth trying to happen.” – Jill Savage

I encourage you to have the confrontation with God. What are you angry about in your life? Have it out with him, he can take it. David, Job, and Jacob, just to name a few, had it out with God. And God did not rebuke them. God met them.

Many psalms are beautiful examples of having it out with God, and through that process, strengthening relationship with him. The psalmist always ends closer to God than when he started. So will you, if you have the conversation.

(4) Seeking God with Trust

Eventually, we want to land here. Hiding and running are ways we avoid seeking God. And fighting with him is a messy way to seek God.

But what if there’s a healthier way?

Jesus modeled a healthy way to seek God in the middle of suffering in Gethsemane. Well, that was Jesus, so it was easy for him! Um, no, not so much. He sweated blood (Luke 22:44). There were no rainbows and unicorns.

Jesus modeled seeking God in a healthy way in the middle of hardship like this:

• He told God what he wanted. “Take this cup from me.” (Matthew 26:39)
• He named the messy emotions. “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)
• He deferred to God, trusting God’s plan: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39,42)
• He received (and accepted!) the supernatural strength to do what he needed to do. An angel from Heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. (Luke 22:43) You will receive the supernatural strength you need too.

But Jesus is God, so he could do that! Yes, Jesus is fully God. But he’s also fully human. In becoming human, Jesus emptied himself of his divinity (Philippians 2:6-8). He did everything as a human, as an example for us. So we can do everything Jesus did, and even greater things (John 14:12), if we have the same relationship with the Father he had, which is available to us who believe through the Holy Spirit.

“We can never be challenged by a negative, but only by the character of God.” – Graham Cooke

In every trial on this earth, God wants to reveal to us, personally, an attribute of himself that we haven’t experienced yet (or at a deeper level than we’ve experienced in the past). So in the midst of trials, can we learn to ask, “Father, what do you want to reveal to me about yourself in this?”

What attribute of God do you need right now?

Your Turn

Does this resonate? In pain, which of these 4 postures do you lean toward? Tell us in the comments. What you have to share will help others. And please share this post with everyone it will bless.