Almost six years ago I had the most painful year of my life (so far) when, for a variety of reasons, long-rooted patterns of living for other peoples' approval and applause came to the surface. The emptiness and hollowness of this life was so raw for me that every morning I woke up with a ball of pain in my stomach. I began to write to it in my journal each day: "Good morning, ball of pain, I wish you would go away . . ." Even though I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, I had never wanted to go through receiving counseling myself. I was the help-er, not the helpee. Pain changed all that. Now I ran for help.
Over time, although I never wanted to feel pain, I came to see that it was doing much good in me. I became much more aware of how everything meaningful in life rides on God. I became much more dependent on him. When people who knew me well would pause to lay hands on me and pray for me, it was like receiving life. Certain temptations involving success and achievement became much less seductive; spiritual reality got clearer.
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The ball of pain gradually got smaller. It still revisits me from time to time. I never want it. But in a strange way I realize that it brings gifts from God that nothing else does.
I know, of course, that countless people have suffered infinitely more pain than I. And I don't believe God is the kind of person who delights in inflicting painful little moral object lessons on helpless mortals. But in my own life, at least, there is this strange duality about pain. It can cause me to wonder where God is, as nothing else can. And it can open me up to my dependence on his presence as nothing else can.
The Gift of Complaining
Job spends most of the book complaining to God. In the wintry books of the Bible, mostly people complain. There is a fascinating paradox in the book of Psalms. The Hebrew name for the psalms was tehillim — "praises."
Scholars sort out the psalms in different categories: psalms of thanksgiving; wisdom psalms, enthronement psalms. But by far the most common kind of psalm is called the lament — or complaint.
You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale . . .
All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant . . .
Israelites devoted more psalms to complaining than any other single category. This may be good news for you. Maybe you already know how to complain or would be willing to learn. Maybe complaining is your spiritual gift.
Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis has written that in the ancient world these complaint prayers are without parallel in other religions. In no other culture did people pray to their god in language that was so frank and even rude: