One of the more encumbering aspects of the Bible Belt Christianity is the unusual propensity to paste and plaster positive token Bible verses on our problems and suffering.

Perhaps you have been going through some sort of pain or suffering, and when you show up to church or Bible study, it feels like you have to posture yourself with positivity or pretend you have the spiritual outlook that everything will be alright.

People ask, “How are you?” and you feel slightly nervous or embarrassed to confess how you’re truly feeling in your difficulty. So instead, you opt for “I’m good, how about you?” 

Or worse. You actually build up the confidence to be authentic and share your sorrow, only to be met with others [unintentionally] giving you cold comfort in the form of uplifting Bible verses like Romans 8:28 or James 1:2; or clichés like “Everything happens for a reason” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

How exhausting.

The fact of the matter is faith isn’t always so simple. Life’s pain brings complexity to our spiritual journeys.

Sometimes, faith looks like devotion and doubt, trusting God with tears in our eyes, or having confidence in His faithful character while being utterly confused by what He’s doing in our suffering. 

Deep wounds require more than a simple fix. This is true of our physical ailments and spiritual maladies.

A band-aid won’t fix a deep gash on our hands. And a Christian’s cliché or a positive Bible verse won’t fix our spiritual suffering and struggles. 

So then, how do we navigate our pain in a Christian subculture dominated by super-spiritual positivity that downplays and diminishes raw authenticity in our hurt and suffering?

No Detours

The temptation to spiritually bypass our trials is all too common. Rather than wrestling with God through the darkness of our pain, we look for a detour, an immediate silver lining, or diminish and devalue the extent of our pain.

For those unfamiliar with spiritual bypassing, I believe Robert Masters best articulates its negative consequences:

Spiritual bypassing distances us not only from our pain and difficult personal issues but also from our own authentic spirituality, stranding us in a metaphysical limbo, a zone of exaggerated gentleness, niceness, and superficiality.

Its frequently disconnected nature keeps it adrift, clinging to the life jacket of its self-conferred spiritual credentials. As such, it maroons us from our full humanity.

Masters powerfully diagnoses a prevalent pattern of thought and behavior in Christian circles to try to move past the deep, layered pain of our lives.

When we spiritually bypass our grief and suffering, we, in effect, become less than ourselves. And thus, if we spiritually bypass our wounds we also bypass the healing we need to become whole again— both in relation to God and others, a double whammy.

So what’s the course correction to spiritual bypassing our suffering? 

Is there a better way to deal with our pain and problems than quoting positive Bible verses or clichés and hoping everything will turn out in our favor in due time?

I believe there is a more advantageous approach.

Raw authenticity is a much more fruitful way to walk with God through our grief.

Instead of spiritually bypassing our suffering and how we think and feel, we embrace it. Instead of posturing and polishing our beliefs and behaviors, we let ourselves exist honestly in relation to God.

In his book, Just Be Honest: How to Worship through Tears and Pray without Pretending, Clint Watkins says this:

You are allowed to dislike your difficulties. And God invites your impassioned pleas for Him to ease or erase your sorrow, according to His will. Contentment does not silence cries for change: it flows from them. 

You imitate your Savior when you weep and wrestle. This challenges those of us who have learned to be skeptical of our emotions. Phrases like ‘faith over feelings’ or ‘trust God, not your emotions’ can promote spiritual suspicion of anything sentimental. But Jesus does not pit truth against tears — He shows us that reverence and wrestling go hand in hand. So allow His heart to soften your faith to trust and feel.

Watkins is on to something. Jesus is not afraid of you being real with Him: He invites it.

Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, was not shy about being real with the Father, so why should we? [see Matthew 26:36–44].

Unfortunately, many Christians are conditioned to grab a quick Bible verse to face suffering and move on, chasing the “breakthrough” of the next season.

But don’t misunderstand me. I am not advocating a departure from Scripture — it’s the exact opposite, in fact.

The role of Scripture in suffering should be to point us to God’s faithful presence: to weep, wrestle, and worship Him. The Bible is balm only insofar as it pushes us into the throne room of grace, and we meet with our Maker and true healer of our hearts.

What we must avoid is using the Scripture in such a way that it creates and permits a pattern of spiritual bypassing.

Moreover, we need a solid, small crowd of trusted, mature community members who will let us wrestle, be honest, and walk alongside us in our pain.

For instance, what if instead of telling someone, “Everything happens for a reason, just gotta trust God,” or quoting Romans 8:28 to a person who’s deeply depressed from shame, just lost their job due to layoff, or to heartbroken parents who just had a miscarriage, we just listened to their pain? 

What if we loved people in pain through prayer and a warm presence? 

After all, the true test of Christian friendship is how we love one another, not when things are convenient or easy, but in the chaos and difficulty of the dark days of life.

Sometimes, I wonder what the Christian life would look like if we dropped the pretense and posturing of spiritual positivity and swapped it for a more realistic and biblical approach like the Psalms or Lamentations.

Perhaps we would discover what saints have known to be true all along: we serve a God of understanding.

In other words, we need not be afraid of being honest with the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. 

A Better Balm

In times of pain and suffering, we need God’s presence, honest praise, and people we trust to get in the trenches with us.

We cannot spiritually bypass our pain with quick-fix Bible verses or Christian clichés; there are no simple fixes to suffering.

The Bible is not a band-aid, but it is an open door to meet with Jesus and focus on His faithfulness and healing power in our pain.

Christ Himself is the one who will provide the ultimate comfort and relief for our restless souls [see Matthew 11:28].

We have to weep, wrestle, and worship our way through the valleys. Countless heroes of the Christian faith testify to this. Isn’t it time we recovered that sense of spiritual authenticity?

Tim Keller put it best when he stated:

Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.

Like Tim, I believe God is not so easily offended by our raw thoughts and emotions in response to our suffering. 

If anyone understands what it means to be human, it is God Himself: Jesus Christ.