How Do You Trust God When You're in Pain?

Bring up pain at a party and watch what happens. People go screensaver on you. They laugh nervously, look at their feet, suddenly need to use the restroom. We don’t like to talk about it.

But if you ask those same people a few honest questions, eventually they’ll tell you. The pain they’ve been through. The pain they’re still in. The pain they feel coming.

Pain is the biggest beef people have against Christianity. It’s a word theologians call theodicy — how can a good God allow bad things to happen to good people? I’ve asked that question myself. I asked it when my daughter LeeBeth passed away suddenly. I was in my study preparing a message about Abraham and Isaac. I heard a noise, called her name, got no answer, and found her in the playroom. Hours later, with my son EJ beside me, we sang “How Great Is Our God” as she passed from this life to the next.

That’s some hellacious pain. And I’m not sharing it to be dramatic. I’m sharing it because I want you to know that everything I’m about to say, I’ve tried to live. This is not theory. This is a path I’ve actually been walking.

Why is there pain in the first place?

This is a real question and it deserves a real answer, not a pat on the shoulder and a Bible verse. So let me be straight with you.

The Bible never promises a pain-free life. In fact, Jesus said in John 16, “In this world, you will have tribulation.” That’s a guarantee, not a warning. The Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust. We live in a fallen, fallible place, and I am a self-centered sinner — worse than I think I am, and so are you. Our planet is broken. Pain is one of the consequences.

Sometimes the pain I go through is because of my own choices. Sometimes it comes from other people’s choices. Sometimes it just comes — like rain — because that’s the kind of world this is.

I’ve asked God why. I’ve had that conversation. And here’s what I’ve come to understand: if God explained everything to me, I don’t have the bandwidth to comprehend it. We think in our humanity, “Oh, I could handle that. Just tell me.” But we can’t. And God is not withholding to be cruel. He’s doing what any guide does in dangerous terrain — asking you to trust the path, even when you can’t see where it leads.

A path through a jungle

I went to a jungle in Central America once. The real deal. Pythons. A snake called the Fer-de-lance — a two-step snake, meaning if it bites you, you have two steps before you’re out. Water crocodiles. Quicksand. And a plant called the Chechem that, if you rub up against it, will rot your skin to the bone. I found that out personally.

I had two Mayan guides. One in front with a machete and a car battery on his shoulder. One in the back — I figured out later, to kill snakes and pull me out of quicksand. The lead guide didn’t speak English well, but he made it clear: step where I step. That’s all you have to do. Step where I step.

There were places he stepped that I would never have stepped naturally. Turns out — quicksand. He was chopping through massive vegetation, literally carving a path out in front of me. I didn’t understand his reasoning. I just followed.

At the end of the trail, we got in the boat and everything was fine.

That’s what Jesus does in pain. He goes before you. He makes the path. He doesn’t promise you’ll understand every step. He asks you to trust the guide.

Four questions to ask in pain

Proverbs 3:5-6 has become a life passage for Lisa and me since LeeBeth passed. It goes:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

There are four questions embedded in those two verses. I’ve found them to be the most practical framework I’ve ever had for navigating pain.

What? What is the pain and what should I do about it? The first answer is trust. Not a feeling — a decision. The Hebrew word for trust in this verse means to lie helpless before God, like a defeated soldier at the feet of a general. Trust is the posture of someone who has stopped trying to win on their own terms. I walked out of that hospital after LeeBeth passed and the first thing I had to do was say, “God, I don’t understand this. But I trust you.” Not because I felt like it. Because it was the only honest thing I could say.

Why? Why the pain? The verse answers this too: “lean not on your own understanding.” This is the hardest one for a why-guy like me. I want explanations. I want the 411. And it’s fine to ask God why — but very quickly you have to move from “why, God?” to “what now?” Because the enemy wants you to stay buried in that rabbit hole, swimming laps in the pool of regret. Would have, should have, could have. I know that pool. I’ve been in it. Jesus is standing at the edge with his nail-scarred hand extended. He wants to pull you out. He’s got a path for you.

When? When do I do this? “In all your ways acknowledge him.” The Hebrew word for acknowledge is yada — total submission. In all your ways. Not just the big decisions. Not just crisis moments. All of them. Every day. The immediacy is constant. When LeeBeth passed, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting until I felt ready to trust God. I had to do it right there in the hospital. Today is the day.

Where? Where is this pain taking me? “He will make your paths straight.” P.A.T.H. — a Purpose that Always Takes us to Him. God is going before you like a king’s advance team, clearing the road of obstacles, making the way straight. I don’t know exactly how he does it. But he does. And when I look back on the path Lisa and I have walked since LeeBeth went to heaven — the opportunities to share, the doors that opened, the people we’ve been able to sit with in their grief — I can see him doing it.

Pain is the great equalizer

I surveyed our church about pain levels. The results were striking but not surprising: 35% relational pain, 15% financial, then depression, loneliness, addiction, death, illness. Every category was full.

Pain doesn’t care about your income, your education, your title, or your church attendance. I had open heart surgery a few years ago — born with a mitral valve prolapse, had to have it repaired. I remember lying in the hospital bed looking at this pain scale on the wall. One to ten. And I’m thinking, I have no idea what number this is. It just hurts.

That’s honest. Pain is hard to quantify. But it can be navigated. Not by avoiding it. Not by explaining it. By walking through it with the right guide.

Christianity is the only religion that doesn’t flinch at pain. It runs straight at it. The symbol of our faith is a cross — an instrument of torture. Jesus didn’t get a pain-free life. He got the worst of it. And he did it to secure your salvation, so that your pain could lead you somewhere.

The path has a destination. It always takes you to him.