HOW TO HANDLE LIFE'S PROBLEMS
Healing Life's Hurts
Zechariah 13:6
Psalm 109:22-23

"How Do You Handle Life's Hurts". Out of the book of Psalms -- how do you handle when life is tough. The fact is, life is not all fun and games. We all do have problems. We all do have difficulties. Jesus warned that "In the world you will have tribulation." How many would agree with that? Nobody's exempt. We have been around long enough to know that life is full of ups and downs. Life has its good time and its bad times. It just seem that the bad times come more frequently than the good times. Many of us have went from one problem, one pain, one heartache, or one crisis into another. It just seems that it never ends at time. The real problem however is not what we face or go through. The real problem is the attitude and the way in which we handle Life's Problems.

I. HOW DO PEOPLE HURT? Primarily, we hurt three ways.

1. We hurt physically. We have our cuts and our scratches and our bumps and our bruises. Some of you live in constant pain. That's not a laughing matter. It is a real hurt to be living in continual pain.

2. We hurt emotionally. That's a little more hidden but it's often harder to deal with than physical pain. How do you deal with emotional hurts? Fear, worry, anger, guilt, grief, depression. How do you get relief from those things?

3. We hurt relationally. The most difficult type of hurt to deal with is the hurt that's caused by other people. It is a fact of life you will be hurt by other people. You need to learn how to deal with it. Sometimes it's misunderstanding, sometimes it's conflict, sometimes it's loneliness, sometimes it's rejection, sometimes it's criticism. How do you deal with the hurts that other people inflict upon your lives?

When you talk about hurts you naturally go to the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms has every gamut of emotions expressed. David kind of spills his guts. He just lays it all out and says "This is the way I feel!" In this passage I want you to see six ways to handle hurts that don't work. Then I want you to see what does work. The reason why we need to look at David as a model for ways that don't work is because they are the six most common ways that we deal with hurt.

David would teach us out of the book of Psalms, Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." David is saying you are never closer to God than when you are hurting. David knew that from personal experience. That's the bottom line. God is close when I'm hurting. So what do I do?

II. SIX REMEDIES FOR HURT THAT DON'T WORK

1. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore your hurt. This is what I call the Clint Eastwood approach to pain. It's the macho approach. I'm tough. Grin and bear it. Give me a bullet to chew on. I'm just going to ignore it. Out of sight, out of mind. If I just ignore it, maybe it will go away. I'll suffer in silence.

Psalm 32:3 "There was a time I wouldn't admit my sin but my dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration."

Ask yourself this question: What am I pretending not to know? What hurt am I simply trying to ignore? We often pretend that everything is all right when we know that everything is not all right.

Some of you parents have children on drugs and you're pretending not to know it. Some of you have had an affair in your marriage and you're pretending to ignore it. Some of you, your marriage is dying, and you're pretending that it's not happening. Some of you are not making it at work, and you're pretending that everything is OK.

Why do we pretend? Because we think, if I can just ignore it maybe it will go away. Yet David says, when I don't admit my hurt, when I don't admit where I've blown it, when I don't admit my sin, all that does is it makes me miserable and it makes me frustrated.

How do you know when you're trying to ignore a problem?

A. You procrastinate. "One of these days... I'm going to take care of this problem." "... One of these days I am going to get right with God." "... I'm going to get some marriage counseling." We always postpone what is painful. It's a fact of life. We try to ignore it by postponing it. Yet notice what happens. He says it makes me miserable and frustrated because denying a hurt never heals it, it only makes it worse. Procrastination tends to turn minor problems into major problems. Postponing pain never solves the pain.

B. "We say time heals everything." The person who invented that phrase had never sat in a doctor's office. Time does not heal everything. Time often festers the problem. It makes it worse. It becomes infected. Some of you have had a problem for 30 years and you're still thinking about it. Time does not heal everything. Don't ignore it.

2. Don't run from it. David would say, I've learned my lesson, I don't run from it anymore. He says, I've tried that. If the first way is the Clint Eastwood approach toward pain, I'd call this the Don Knotts approach to pain. The Chicken hearted. Run from it. Leave, get out, escape, retreat, back off. I'm not going to stay around.

Psalm 55:6 & 8 "I wish I had wings like a dove, I'd fly away and find some rest. I'd flee to some refuge from all this storm."

How many have ever felt like that? How many of you mothers of preschoolers have ever felt like that? It is human nature to run away from difficulty. It's a fact of life.

By law, all doors in public buildings swing out. When people panic, they run. They escape.

There are many ways to escape today. You could take drugs. You could get drunk. You could have an affair.

We are experts at escaping. We think of many, many ways to escape. We try to escape by doing things that give us excitement and thrills. I call this the Disneyland or Disney world approach, we wait two hours for a thirty second ride. The thing that bugs me is it lets you off exactly where you started. You have made no progress at all.

That's the problem with kicks and escape. You can escape it but when you come back you still have the hurt. You never solve a problem by running from it. In fact, if you do, you'll just face it again in another situation because God wants you to grow. And if you don't grow in the particular situation, God will give you another opportunity to correct the problem when you come back you face reality. Sooner or later we all have to face and properly deal with our sins and other problems that hinder our relationship with God and others.

David says, don't ignore it and he'd say, I've learned from experience, don't run from a hurt.

3. Don't hide it. This is a person who says, I'm not going to ignore it and I'm not going to run from it, but I'm just not going to tell anybody else about it. I'll wear a mask. We're good at masquerading.

Psalm 32:2-3 "I kept quiet, not saying a word, but my suffering only grew worse. I was overcome with anxiety. The more I thought, the more troubled I became." Don't hide your hurt.

We don't want to admit that we have problem, we would rather hide from everyone and continue to be miserable.

We don't like to admit when we sin, have problems or hurt, so we hide it, we wear a mask. The problem is that God knows everything there is to know about all of us. We can not hide anything from God.

Why don't we just admit it? Call on God for help.

Many of you have become very good at disguising your hurt. You disguise it by nice clothes, nice cars. Many of us think, If I could just get a certain thing, then I'll be happy. If I could just get a Mercedes, then life would be great. If I could just save enough money to take that vacation. If I could just remodel the house. If I could just buy something -- the purchase of happiness -- then everything would be great.

The fact is, possessions never compensate for pain. I know a lot of people who have everything they want and they're still hurting very, very deeply. Hiding a hurt only intensifies it.

He says, as a result of hiding it I was overcome with anxiety and I became more troubled. We need to be committed to openness and honesty and unconditional acceptance because the fact is we all have pain and problems.

Revealing my feeling is the beginning of healing. That's what James 5:16 says "confess your faults to one another."

You can never work on a fault until you first admit it. To yourself, to God, to other people. Revealing your feeling takes it out of the closet. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. How many times have I had people come to me and say, "Pastor, I've never told this to anybody...." I know that we're about to experience a breakthrough in that person's life because telling it to somebody else, whether it's me or anybody else, is the release that let's them get on with life.

David would say, Don't ignore it, Don't run from it, Don't hide it.

4. Don't worry about it. We love to stew and fret and spew and get uptight. We become anxious. Worry is an attempt to control something that is uncontrollable. It's playing God. It's assuming responsibility God never meant for me to have. That's worry. When I worry about something, it never solves anything. To worry about something I can't change is useless. To worry about something I can change is dumb. Because I can change it, so I ought to go change it and invest the time in changing it rather than simply worrying about it.

Psalm 55:2 "I am worn out by my worries." Psalm 77 "I am so worried I cannot speak." Psalm 37:8 "Don't give in to worry or anger, it only leads to trouble."

Worry is like a rocking chair. You rock back and forth, back and forth but you never make any progress. It doesn't solve anything. Don't worry about your problems, work on your problems. Pray about your problems. If you prayed as much as you worried, you'd have less to worry about.

Have you noticed that when you worry about something it increases the size of the problem dramatically? If somebody criticizes you then the more you rehearse it in your mind the bigger and bigger it gets. Pretty soon, the whole world is against you.

Worrying does not work. Don't run from a hurt, don't hide from a hurt, don't ignore a hurt, don't worry about a hurt. You've got two options: rehearse it or release it. The more you rehearse a worry, a hurt, it becomes bigger and bigger in your life.

5. Don't resent your hurt. You give into self pity. "Poor me!" You have a pity party. David discovered that resentment doesn't work either.

Psalm 73:21-22 "When my thoughts were bitter and my feelings were hurt, I did not understand you."

He says here, I don't understand the situation. I don't understand what God's doing, what I'm doing. I don't understand anything because resentment has clouded my mind.

There is one thing more harmful than your hurt, whatever it is. Regardless of where you're hurting, there's one thing more harmful than that hurt. That is to become resentful about that hurt. Resentment is much, much worse than anything you'll ever hurt over. If you become resentful, it just becomes a poison that prolongs the hurt and clouds the issue and keeps you from having joy.

The past can't hurt you! Unless you let it. Unless you allow it to hurt you. Resentment will never change what's happened. It happened! It's over. It's dead. It's finished. You don't change the past, you just ruin the future with resentment. Let it go! The past is past and nothing is going to change it. Not all the resentment in the world.

One of the facts of life is that, as long as I'm fixing the blame, I cannot fix the problem. You'll spend your energy on one or the other. Fixing the blame -- who's at fault. Or fixing the problem.

Some of you in marriage need to quit fixing the blame and start fixing the problem. Instead of turning your energy against each other, turn your energy together against the problem. And work on it that way. You'll be bitter or you'll be better. It's your choice. Many of you are allowing people in your past to continue to hurt you in the present and that just does not make sense.

David says, "When my thoughts were bitter and my feelings were hurt, I did not understand you." I withdrew into a shell and protected myself and I made myself miserable.

We usually try these first five and when we decide that none of these work -- running from it doesn't work, hiding from it doesn't work, ignoring it doesn't work, worrying about it doesn't work, and resenting it doesn't work -- then we usually naturally assume that there's only one alternative and that is we want to throw in the towel.

6. Don't give up. David says I tried that and that doesn't work either. Don't give up. Maybe this is the stage you're at today. Maybe you've been carrying a hurt for so long you're thinking, What is the use? Why even try? I'm at the end of my rope. I want to throw in the towel. I want to call it quits. I'm like Humpty Dumpty, nothing could put me back together again. It's over. I've tried too long and my life is out of control. I'm going to give up.

David knew exactly how you feel. He knew what it was like to hit bottom.

Psalm 130:1-2 "From the depth of my despair, I call to you Lord. Hear my cry, Lord -- listen to my call for help."

All of us at one time or another have ignored our problems, we have run from our problems, we have hid our problems, we have worried about our problem and we have resented our problems. You may be here reading this and you are still doing these things and perhaps on the verge of giving up. Let me encourage you to; Stop ignoring your problem, Stop running from the problem, Stop hiding the problem, Stop worrying about the problem, Stop resenting the problem, and by all means Never give up.

Have you ever been in a relay race where they fill up the glass with water to the top and then you walk down to one end and you hand it to somebody else, and they walk back -- back and forth. Then at the end of the relay race, the person that still has the most water in the glass, wins. If you fill that glass up to the very brim, if you jiggle it just slightly it spills out because it's so full. Some of you this morning are so full of hurt that any little stress devastates you. It unnerves you. Any little thing can tick you off. You've got so much hurt in your life, right up to the brim that any slight thing that goes wrong in your life -- any little jiggle -- you spill out all over! And you come apart. If you don't show it outwardly, you do it inwardly.

What do you do? If you don't ignore your problem and you don't run from your hurt and you don't hide it and you don't worry about it and you don't resent it and you don't give up, what will work? I want you to know that there is hope for those who will call on the lord.

David says -- Psalms 142:2-3, "I bring God all my complaints, I tell Him all my troubles.

Read From the bible.

Psalm 142:1-3 I cried unto the Lord with my voice; With my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. (2) I poured out my complaint before Him; I showed before him my troubles.

When I'm ready to give up, He knows what I should do!" He says instead of giving up, I give it over. The first step is give my hurt to God. He's the only one who can do anything about it. I can't. He says when I'm ready to give up, when I'm ready to throw in the towel, I bring God all my complaints and He knows what to do. When you feel powerless to change a situation then you look to a power beyond yourself. God is greater than your problems. Jesus Christ said "When you know the truth, which is in the Bible the truth will set you free." Free from hurt. If you want to be free from discouragement, from hurt, turn it over to The Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion:

You're reading this right now... but it is not by accident. God brought you here. He brought you here to say this to you. Don't give up! Don't give up. He says, "Turn everything over to Me." Inside you're hurting. Maybe you've got a physical hurt and you're in constant pain and you hate to complain about it all the time and you don't like to gripe and be down but it's there. And it's so discouraging. Others of you are reading this and you've got an emotional hurt. Maybe it's some secret regret. Maybe it's a fear and you're scared to death. Maybe you're worried sick. Maybe you're lonely and that ache hurts inside your body. Maybe you're depressed. Maybe you've got a relational hurt -- somebody has hurt you in the past or they're hurting you right now. Maybe you've got a financial hurt. Maybe you're about to go under.

What are you going to do with that hurt? Are you going to ignore it? It won't go away. God's word to you now is stop procrastinating -- face your hurt, face the thing you fear the most. Are you going to run from it? You will never solve the problem by avoiding it. You will never solve the problem by running from it. What are you pretending not to know? What are you going to do with your hurt? Are you going to try to hide it? Maybe you're very good at wearing a mask. But you're dying inside. Hiding a hurt only intensifies it and it is the truth of God's word that revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. Share it. Are you worried? What are you worried about? Worry will not solve anything. It does not resolve problems. It can't change the past. It cannot control the future. It simply messes up today. It only exaggerates your problem. Are you resentful? Who are you blaming for your unhappiness? Are you tempted to give up?

Some of you are already Christians and you've had a hurt and you've given it to the Lord, but you've taken it back. You need to say again, "Lord, I need to give this back to You." It's human nature to try to hold on to our hurts even though they hurt us. You need to give your hurt and your life to Christ.

The second thing you need is spiritual support. You will not make it by yourself. You need other Christians. If you're not a member of a church, I challenge you, I encourage you, make one your home. I challenge you to get involved in a small group where you can share what's going on in your life and other people can share. You say, "That's scary!" You bet it is. But once you begin to do it, you will never go back to the old way of living by holding on to your hurts.

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