When We Hurt

As bad as we may think we are, all of us will experience hurt at various points in our lives. I think we all need to reject the notion that feeling hurt is an indication of weakness or is a negative reflection on our character. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is a sign of weakness is when we consistently try to deny the hurts in our lives and we go bopping along trying to fool others into thinking that we immune to such feelings.

In addition to denying the existence of hurt in our lives, we also need to be careful as to how we address them. Sometimes we become so focused on the alleviation of the pain in our lives that we allow non-spiritual so-called solutions to invade our singleness journey.

Let’s look at an example and hopefully you can apply that to other instances of how we seek non-spiritual solutions to those times we find ourselves hurting. You as a female have a male platonic friend that you know is going through a tough time in his life. With genuine spiritual concern, you offer to help him through this troubled time by offering spiritual encouragement. When you give him a “holy ghost” hug, the movements of his hands on your body and his other bodily movements suggest to you he wants to show you his gratitude in a carnal way. Because you do find him physically attractive, you give brief consideration to “accepting” his gesture of appreciation. But then, you quickly come to your spiritual senses and you remove yourself from this situation.

You went in with the best of intentions and you felt like progress was made in helping your friend deal with his hurt. Then seemingly out of left field comes his sexual advance. For your friend, he may be seeking to alleviate his hurt by having sex with you. At that point, he may be where many of us find ourselves at various times. Sometimes we feel like what we need is a passionate kiss or a “romp in the hay”. We know that is not spiritual, but sometimes we feel the spiritual way is not what we need or want at that moment.

The point of this post is that whether or not we are the one who is hurting, we must be mindful of seeking spiritual solutions, not something else. I know that sometimes we get tired of all that spiritual talk and that sometimes we desire something more physical. I know that the spiritual way can at times appear elusive and not relevant to our circumstances. I feel you when you feel like shouting, “Enough with all of that spiritual stuff. Just take my pain away!!” But what we often find out after the fact is that the spiritual way is the ONLY way out of the hurt we are feeling. God is not a distant philosophical concept that has no relevance to the problems we face. Instead, He has lasting and pertinent solutions. He promises to set us free and to free us indeed. Let’s hold on to that promise and not be distracted by other stuff when we feel hurt.