“I can’t take any more heartbreak.” Zach was a man who struggled with anxiety, loneliness, and a deep fear of being alone. Over many years, he had learned to cope with these feelings through serial monogamy. A breakup would trigger bad feelings, after which he would quickly go on the hunt. Eventually, he would meet someone new, whose attention and affection would soothe his discomfort. However, the bad feelings always returned once the newness of the relationship wore off, compelling Zach to act in possessive and controlling ways. Predictably, within several months the relationship would unravel, throwing him back into the anxiety and loneliness he was trying to escape. After several years of this vicious cycle, he was sitting in my office at the end of his rope.
I suggested that Zach devote himself to a season of singleness. Instead of focusing all his attention on finding the perfect partner to banish his loneliness, perhaps he should turn inward to discover the wounds driving his pain. “Zach, as long as you are self-medicating with women, you will never see the roots of the problem, and they will continue to control you behind your back.”
What Zach needed was to find a way to endure his pain long enough to understand it and to develop tools to work through it. Instead of compulsively trying to escape discomfort, he needed to feel it, reflect on it, pray about it, and talk about it. Unfortunately, Zach didn’t act on this counsel and immediately jumped into another dating relationship, starting the self-defeating cycle all over again.
How often are we like Zach? When we experience discomfort or pain, how often do we compulsively do things to distract and console ourselves? We know in our heart of hearts that this is a fruitless, even self-destructive, way to handle things, but the scream for soothing is louder than the whisper of wisdom.
But wisdom teaches that if we want healing and transformation, we must find a way to deal with the temptation to circumvent emotional and spiritual pain.
How the Temptations of Jesus Can Help
We find wisdom for this part of our journey in the temptations of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (4:1-11). As we focus on this passage, what’s most helpful is not a literal interpretation of the specific trials but an understanding of the dynamics of temptation revealed through a symbolic reading of the story.
Trial 1
After Jesus had fasted in the desert for forty days, the “tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread’” (4:3). In this way, Jesus was tempted to grasp something readily available to him and turn it into something else that would satisfy his hunger.
At first glance, we might not see ourselves in this part of the story, but if we look more deeply, it becomes clear that we too face this temptation. Discomfort and pain trigger cravings that we try to satisfy by misusing God’s good gifts. For example, the Bible says that wine, in moderation, is a divine blessing that makes the heart merry, and Jesus’ use of wine at the Last Supper elevates it as a symbol of forgiveness and the full reign of God’s righteousness on Earth. Unfortunately, many abuse this good gift by using it as an emotional anesthetic. Likewise, God gives us sexual intimacy to nurture deep and abiding love, but many transform it into a strategy for escaping pain. Through fantasy and objectification, people become objects that can be consumed to satisfy selfish hungers and soothe discomfort. Even emotional gifts like anger can be used to cover up fear and hurt. God gives us the capacity for anger so that we can recognize and respond to injustice, but we transform it into an obsessive form of negative excitement that hides our fear and brokenness.
Indeed, virtually every good gift of God can be perverted by the sinful use of power into a means of escaping emotional and spiritual pain. But Jesus doesn’t take the bait: “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (4:4). Jesus refuses to misuse people and things to escape discomfort, but endures these experiences as necessary for the life to which God has called him.
Trial 2
Then the tempter led Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus responded, “‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (4:5-6).
How often do we try to get God to perform a magic trick that will exempt us from the natural consequences of our actions? The temptation of immature and false religion appears in our attempts to leverage God’s love and faithfulness for miraculous relief from pain. Of course, there is nothing wrong with expressing our desires to God, and God certainly works in mysterious ways to help us through difficulty, but mature spirituality always yields to the prayer, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42, Matt. 26:42).
Nevertheless, when grappling with the negative consequences of their own actions, religious people sometimes regress spiritually and emotionally. “God, what have I done to deserve this? I have been faithful to you, so if you love me, if you are faithful and just, then rescue me from this pain!” Some even act as if the request for a magic trick were completely selfless: “God, miraculously deliver me from this bad situation I’ve caused for myself so that unbelievers will come to know your power.”
In this way, we put God’s love, faithfulness, and power to the test while indulging in magical thinking, entitlement, self-righteousness, and self-deception. Instead of focusing on doing God’s will, we try to get God to do ours.
Trial 3
Finally, the tempter took Jesus “to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world . . . and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:8-9). According to the story, the devil had the kingdoms of the world to give because, in some sense, he ruled them. In this context, worshiping the devil meant accepting that he was the rightful ruler of this world and endorsing his methods and strategies. He was essentially saying, “Jesus, if you accept the world on my terms and play by my rules, I can make you successful beyond your wildest dreams. But you must put your faith in me and do it my way.”
As odd as it might sound, “worshiping the devil” in this way is also a temptation for us. We are encouraged to figure out how the world works and then leverage our power within this system to gain worldly success at the expense of others. If you can accept the brutal facts about how the world works, curry favor with the rich and powerful, leverage the right resources, and intelligently navigate the politics of it all, then you too can be the envy of all your friends and banish all your anxiety. This will require you to compromise or sacrifice some of your most deeply held beliefs and values, but the payoff is incredible!
Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’” (4:10). When we are tempted to capitulate to the world’s value system and to accommodate our lives to escape pain by acquiring success, Jesus says, “It’s a trap.” Worldly success does not magically heal your pain or make you happy. There are more miserable successful people than you might imagine. While they appear to have everything you’ve ever wanted, deep inside you can hear the crickets chirping in their souls. Without deep spiritual transformation, they are invariably haunted by the question, “Is this all there is? Is this what I practically killed myself for?” (“Compelled to Control: Is the Success Culture Destroying Christianity?“)
Illusions that Drive the Dynamics of Temptation
These trials of Jesus in the desert reveal three things that continually threaten to derail our journey toward transformation, and at their core they reveal the same compulsion: to escape discomfort. All of us are tempted, in countless ways, to leverage our personal power to escape pain, compulsively grasping for things and experiences that promise immediate relief. We do this by transforming God’s good gifts into various kinds of anesthetics, leveraging our relationship with God to force a divine magic trick, and sacrificing deeply held beliefs and values to attain worldly success.
But the temptations only work if one is duped into accepting three assumptions.
- All forms of discomfort and pain are unproductive and bad.
- We can circumvent discomfort and pain and still get everything we want.
- There are shortcuts and magic tricks that, if shrewdly applied, will give us immediate gratification.
Of course, these assumptions are false.
Experience teaches us that not all discomfort and pain are bad. In fact, spiritual and emotional growth require us to abide with these feelings, learn the lessons they teach, and tend to the inner wounds that drive them. At the beginning of our Bible story, we read, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (4:1). Jesus was baptized by John and given a vision of his true identity and mission. Before his shirt was dry, God drove him into the desert. Why? Because abiding in this lonely and uncomfortable place was necessary for him to become in reality what God had already declared him to be. Likewise, God leads us into desert places and exposes us to challenge and pain to create the necessary conditions for healing, freedom, and transformation. We cannot experience lasting change without working through our pain (which requires us to cultivate the virtues of longsuffering and forbearance).
Finally, experience teaches us that there are no shortcuts or magic tricks for receiving the gifts that make life worth living. It takes time to develop loving relationships. It takes time to build character and cultivate virtues such as faith, temperance, patience, kindness, humility, and courage, all of which are necessary for a truly happy life. It takes time to attain wisdom, develop our gifts and talents, and find the best ways to share them with the world. It takes time to let go of ego and live into the reality of our true selves in the unity of all things. The tempter says, “You can bypass the pain and get it all now if you’re willing to misuse your personal power.” But Jesus says, “Be true to yourself and faithful to the life which I have called you. Trust God’s goodness, faithfulness, and timing, and God will give you abundant life.”
And Jesus would know, because after enduring temptation, God eventually gave him everything the devil had offered ahead of schedule (Robert Capon, The Romance of the Word, 192-195). The devil tempted him to turn a few stones into bread, and Jesus would later multiply two fish and five loaves to feed 5,000 people (by any account, a far greater feat). The devil promised relief from hunger, and Jesus would later feast with his disciples and speak of the heavenly banquet he would host for all eternity. The devil promised the ministry of angels, but as soon as Jesus sent him away, “suddenly angels came and waited on him” (4:11). The devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and a few years later God raised him from the dead and made him the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
If Jesus had taken matters into his own hands and used his power for immediate gratification, it would have corrupted the very gifts God had promised and led to his downfall. But he waited for God and received them in ways no one, including the devil, could take away. God promises the same to us. If we are willing to abide in a desert place, God will use it in God’s time and in God’s way to transform us into abundant life.
Challenge
How do you handle discomfort? What happens inside you in response to feelings such as sadness, fear, loneliness, guilt, anger, anxiety, or boredom? Do you compulsively try to escape pain, or have you learned to stay with it long enough to become curious about the lessons it can teach? Do you distract and console yourself, or allow yourself to feel, reflect, pray, journal, and talk about it?
Which of the three strategies illustrated in the temptations of Jesus do you most often use as an escape hatch? Do you misuse your personal power to turn the good gifts of God into anesthetics? Do you leverage your relationship with God in hopes of a divine magic trick? Do you abandon your most deeply held beliefs and values to pursue strategies for worldly success? What would it mean for you to recognize that at least some of your pain could be a pathway to spiritual transformation?
Continue the Journey
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Pastor Mark Reynolds is the author of the forthcoming book What Christians Do: Living Like Jesus in a Divided World (October 2026), exploring practical ways Christians can embody the character and teachings of Jesus in today’s world.
(This post is the fourth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)
Pastor Mark Reynolds 