Numbing

I went to my eye doctor today. Over the past several years it has become a familiar routine every two months or so. More often than not I know up front what awaits me. Injection in one or both eyes. Each time they numb the eye with two different eye drops and then a gel. Many times I can barely feel the prick of the needle. At other times I can slightly. I have endured this 79 times.

That is not my focus today. My focus is the different ways people try to numb the pain of life. Some do it in productive ways. They work. They exercise. They serve others. They get medical treatment. All in an attempt to manage the pain.

Of course people try to numb pain in unproductive ways as well. They give into hedonism. The pursuit of pleasure at any cost. They will have sex as often as they please and with as many people as they please throwing caution to the wind. Sex is used for personal gratification without taking the repercussions into account. In the end, instead of numbing the pain unbridled sex can create more. Unwanted pregnancies. Venereal disease. Shame. Broken marriages.

Others try to numb pain with alcohol. More than one can or bottle gets guzzled in an attempt to numb the pain. They may enjoy the temporary high in a drunken stupor, but the pain returns. It always returns. You can't drown your sorrows in booze. It creates a vicious cycle of searching for relief in a can or a bottle but the relief never comes. One glass of wine can turn into two. One bear can turn into two beers. In time beer is not a strong enough depressant. Then it goes to hard liquor. Maybe just a shot at first. Then two. Next a glass and then onto several bottles in a week. The consequences. Addiction. Strife in the home. Violent outbursts. Depression. Poor job performance. Alcohol creates more pain than it numbs.

The same is true with drugs. Introductory drugs pacify only for a while. Harder and harder drugs are tried. One day the drugs take hold of your life. It is what you live for. Everything revolves around the next high. Consequences are death, addiction, incarceration due to committing crimes to get enough money for the drugs.

None of these things can numb the pain of life. The pleasure of sex, alcohol and drugs is fleeting. Satan lies convincing if we just do it again, try one more, go a little further than last time it will bring the long sought after relief. Satan is a liar! It never works. Nothing he offers as a counterfeit to what Jesus offers will satisfy. Millions are duped over and over again.

Behind every sex act, behind every bottle of beer or the harder stuff and behind every drug hit sits a sinister smiling Satan. His ambition is to steal, kill and destroy. He will lie, deceive, trick, beguile, ensnare, and do everything in his power to do one of those three things; steal, kill or destroy your life. He is relentless too. While you may think his vices will numb your pain you will find in the long run only more pain follows his temptations.

John 10:10 (ESV)
10  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I see it in the people who look beaten up and beaten down by hard lives and repeated bad choices. Women used like dirty dishrags to gratify the selfish desires of another. They do not feel love. They feel cheap and worthless. I see people caught by the throat in addictions they are powerless to free themselves from. They try. They plan to break free. The cravings are too strong and they get sucked back in over and over again. Soon they loose hope they will ever be free and quit trying to resist as their lives spin downward in destructive patterns.

The pain of life is real. Very real. How is a person to cope? What is a person to do? This will sound as old as the oldest Sunday school lesson. Pray. Read your Bible. Before I elaborate, let me say I know some pains require professional help such as medical treatments, substance abuse treatments and mental health treatment. For the everyday garden varieties of pain and disappointments praying and reading your Bible will do more good. It will help you. More than sex, alcohol and drugs.

God's word is like healing medicine for the soul. Try these.

Isaiah 43:2 (ESV)
2  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Psalm 119:165 (ESV)
165  Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.

John 14:14 (ESV)
14  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Psalm 37:4 (ESV)
4  Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

These are just a smidgen of thousands and thousands of verses that can minister to the soul.

Prayer is inviting God to join your pain and help you through it. Read what prayer can accomplish.

Mark 11:23-24 (ESV)
23  Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.
24  Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

John 15:7-8 (ESV)
7  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
8  By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

James 5:16 (ESV)
16  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

1 John 5:14-15 (ESV) 

14  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 

15  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. 

I have found with time, as I keep praying and reading my Bible, God has helped me through every pain. He has not only numbed the pain. In most situations He has changed me or changed the circumstances. 

I started writing this today talking about visiting my eye doctor. On my last visit two months ago the vision in my left eye was 20/80. Today it was 20/25. I give glory to God. My poor eye sight has been a source of great personal pain to me over the past seven years. With prayer, reading the word (sometimes in giant large print) and seeing my doctor I praise God I can see today. 

Don't try to numb your pain in destructive ways. God's way is better.