Distracting Ourselves From Pain

“I saw those new house decorations you bought. Why did you get those?” he asked.

“I thought they would look nice on the wall” I said.

“Try not to spend too much on things like that. We really don’t have the money.”

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I think I’ve actually been lonely with you gone at work so much. Shopping gave me something to do.”

This conversation happened over a decade ago but I still remember it. That’s because it was the first time I realized and connected my shopping habits with my loneliness. I finally came face to face with the fact that I used shopping in an attempt to fill a void in my heart.

I’ve since discovered other behaviors and practices in my life that I do to cover up uncomfortable feelings, losses, fears, worries, boredom, and stress. They are temporary distractions, ways to hide myself from the painful realities of life. For example, I remember being so tired and stressed from early motherhood that I literally said to myself, “I deserve a diet soda today. I need a soda or I won’t make it to bed time.” (I’ve said the same about chocolate!)

I also found myself longing for and looking for those rare moments of “me time” at the end of the day. Whenever that time was interrupted, I reacted in frustration. That “me time” had become my “savior.”

We all have those things in our life that we use to hide our pain or to cover up things we’d rather not face. Shopping, eating, watching tv, playing on our phones, completing to-do lists, and keeping busy are all common ones. But ultimately, anything can become our “savior,” something we look to to make our life better, easier, comfortable, and safe.

Many times these distractions are things that everyone else does so we accept them in ourselves. In truth, they are “acceptable sins.” By that I mean they are sins that are considered “normal” and so we let them slide. We laugh about them. We shrug them off. When in reality, they take our affections away from God. These distractions rob God of the glory and honor that is rightly his.

We need to resist and fight against these desires that wage war within our souls. We need to stand up against these distractions. We need to remind ourselves that they are false counterfeits for the real thing. They will never fill the aching void in our heart. They will never satisfy or give our lives meaning. As much as we’d like to think so, they will never drown out or cover up the pain in our lives.

Only the love and grace of Christ can meet our deepest needs.

“Failing to believe that everything we need we already have in Christ, we look under every worldly rock and behind every worldly tree for something to make us happy, something to save us, something to set us free. The works of the flesh-”sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21)-are simply the fruit of our attempts to save ourselves.” (Tullian Tchividjian in One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World, p.202)

We can’t just try and stop being distracted by these things. Simple resolve won’t keep us from them. We need to turn away from them and turn toward Christ. Ultimately, that’s what repentance is, a turning away from sin. When we see these distractions for what they are, we need to turn from them in repentence and receive the grace and forgiveness Christ purchased for us at the cross. Then we have to turn our hearts and affections toward Christ. We have to dwell on all that we are and have because of him. He has to become our greatest treasure. Only then will all those things we do to distract ourselves fade away. Their significance in our heart will lessen the more Christ becomes supreme.

As Augustine wrote in his famed book, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” We were made to love, worship, and seek after God. Until we do, we’ll remain restless and distracted. So let’s turn from our worthless idols and all that distracts today and turn toward our Savior, Jesus Christ.