Which pain would you pick?
Ending the "Nirvana Search" in favor of fruit
How much time and energy do you think we spend trying to escape pain? Me? It’s pretty high up there. I bet you do too. We’d have to be psychotic to actually want pain in our lives, so I mean, trying to escape pain doesn’t make us crazy.
But can I make a suggestion?
Stop it.
Stop trying to escape pain. As I was reading The Entitlement Cure by Dr. John Townsend, he made it clear.
“Life has no pain-free option.”
He calls the quest for the pain-free life the “Nirvana Search,” and that search will always come up empty this side of heaven.
There will be pain. But the best news ever? We get to choose what kind.
So let’s discuss:
Which pain would you pick?
There are two specific types of pain we will address today: symptom pain and success pain.
SYMPTOM PAIN
Dr. Townsend calls symptom pain “a sharp discomfort that alerts you to the reality that you need to do something new and different.” He gives these examples:
Physical - feeling sluggish and tired
Emotional - feeling overwhelmed, sad, or anxious
Relational - feeling alienated and alone
Career - feeling frustrated from a lack of fulfillment
Financial - suffering losses and struggles with money management
Spiritual - feeling disconnected from God and his grace
We get frustrated with symptom pain without understanding it’s necessary to alert us to what actions we need to take. Otherwise, imagine if it didn’t hurt to lose a friendship? I often think about the people who can’t feel pain because of nerve or brain receptor issues. It seems like such a blessing, but results in grabbing scalding pots and not feeling the skin singe, and leaving third-degree burns. The pain can be helpful if it redirects us and if we don’t choose symptom pain as our pain of choice.
Symptom pain comes when our mantra is “feel good at all costs.”
SUCCESS PAIN
He calls success pain “a discomfort that helps you change and grow. It’s good for you. … It may be just as uncomfortable as symptom pain, but so what? It brings you good fruit and makes it worthwhile.” Here are examples of what success pain can look like in the previous categories:
Physical - choosing to go for a walk, lift weights, or choose the healthy meal option
Emotional - facing your feelings and sharing them with someone who can help
Relational - having hard conversations instead of giving up on a friendship
Career - working hard when you feel like you deserve it to come more easily
Financial - skipping the new Easter outfits or making time to budget
Spiritual - feeling disconnected from God and his grace
Success pain comes when our mantra is “face the pain that gets you somewhere.”
The reality is, these are all things that feel too hard to do in the moment, but have we forgotten that we aren’t choosing between a pain-free life and this? I feel like I have a major case of amnesia when it comes to this. Or a blind spot that only sees the immediate moment. So we end up choosing pain; that’s a symptom of not choosing good, hard things. And we aren’t bearing any fruit as a result.
So we get the pain, AND we end up with nothing.
And we just keep cycling through being devastated by a life filled with pain.
Note: In case you’re wondering, I do think there’s a third bucket of pain that we will talk about in a future post. That bucket is the suffering we face that’s not a result of choices and consequences. Coincidentally, in Vivi’s mom-daughter Bible study at school, we discussed this suffering yesterday (1 Peter 1). So I did want to make mention of it that there is a third pain, but today, I just wanted to talk about the pain we feel because of our choices.
I am always on the hunt for the pain-free option, but what if I let it sink in that pain is part of life? What could happen? How different would my life be?
Since this concept has wrecked me, I’m noticing so many moments where I’ll do things when they need to be done and practice more discipline simply because I’m being realistic about what happens next. And this all while on sabbatical and having every excuse to lie around and do nothing. Funny enough, I have been doing some of that, and my back is killing me. Lying on a couch and napping too much isn’t the life-giving break I expected. Symptom pain.
What’s a girl to do?
If anything, this has been just ONE MORE REMINDER (I know. I bring this up in most posts) that this is why we pray and ask God these questions. I don’t want you to just hop up and get rigid and hard on yourself and never choose rest because you’ve got hard things to do. God has that for us too. But depending on your personality, you have indulged too much. And in an effort to not swing to far in the other direction, we need to be praying. We need to be truly abiding and letting God lead our steps.
So today, let’s ask God these questions in prayer:
What difficulty have you been avoiding?
What has it cost you?
What pain do I need to choose today?