Bible Verses for Chronic Pain: Sorrow Every Day, Psalms of the Body, and People in Scripture Who Stayed Hurt

Sorrow in my heart every day

How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

Psalm 13 is a short prayer of complaint. It asks about delay four times and turns toward trust only later, in the verses that follow:

3 Behold, and answer me, Yahweh, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death; 4 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; Lest my adversaries rejoice when I fall. 5 But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation.

The Hebrew behind "every day" is yomam, which Brown-Driver-Briggs at Bible Hub gives as by day, or daily. The psalm gives you words for pain that comes every day, said straight to God four times over, from the Bible's own book of prayers. In the flare, read verse 2 once. Then stay with its question: what have you been waiting for longer than you expected?

Your report of pain counts

If a doctor, an employer, family or church has not believed you, the definitions start with you. The International Association for the Study of Pain defined pain in 2020 as "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage," and added, "A person’s report of an experience as pain should be respected." The World Health Organization's ICD-11 counts pain as chronic when it "persists or recurs for longer than 3 months," and includes chronic primary pain, which no other condition better accounts for. In the United States, the CDC's 2023 survey estimates that 24.3 percent of adults had chronic pain.

Pain UK's charter says, "We will believe what you tell us: we know that many people who live with pain sometimes don’t feel believed." Reviews by Newton and colleagues (UK, 2013) and Nicola and colleagues (Australia, 2019, 431 studies) found disbelief, isolation and threats to a person's sense of self running through accounts of chronic pain.

Psalms that name the body

You can borrow the psalms' words for a body in pain. David prays in Psalm 6:2, "Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled." The same psalm's tears in the night are read on Bible verses for mental exhaustion. Psalm 22:14-15, whose opening cry is read on what the Bible says about suffering, says, "All my bones are out of joint. My strength is dried up like a potsherd."

Psalm 31:9 says, "My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief," and Psalm 102:5, "By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin." These give you the body named in prayer, bones and strength and groaning, by people who prayed from inside it.

For the nights

Job told God exactly what his nights were like: "wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day." Later he says, "In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest." His words were kept, and you can say them as yours. Bible verses for nightmares reads Job 7:11-14.

Chung and colleagues' 2021 meta-analysis of studies on chronic non-cancer pain found sleep disturbance in about three quarters of participants.

If a night has grown too long to bear, and you are thinking of ending your life, please reach a person now. In the United States, call or text 988. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists services by country.

People in Scripture who stayed hurt

Jacob wrestles until dawn in Genesis 32, asks for a blessing and receives it, and the chapter ends with the sun rising on him as "he limped because of his thigh." The Catholic commentator Cornelius a Lapide reads the limp as staying with him as a memorial, and Rashi, the Jewish commentator, ties Israel's custom about the sinew of the thigh to it.

Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, was five when, as his nurse fled with him, "he fell and became lame." Years later David seeks him out and tells him, "You will eat bread at my table continually." The chapter ends, "He was lame in both his feet."

Paul tells Timothy, a younger colleague in the work, to "use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities." Each carried pain inside a whole story: a blessing, a friendship, a life's work.

If you were prayed over and are still in pain

One person wrote on Reddit's r/ChronicIllness, "My church prayed over me sometimes, and every time I went, someone would say something along the lines of ‘God will heal you soon.’" Another, on Reddit's r/ChronicPain, wrote that "people started to blame me when their praying didn't heal me."

Isaiah 53, which Bible verses for health anxiety reads among healing verses people send, often sits behind what people hear: "Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering," and in the KJV, "with his stripes we are healed." Rashi reads the servant as Israel, and verse 4 as Israel's suffering before the nations. Matthew applies verse 4 to Jesus healing the sick one evening: "He took our infirmities, and bore our diseases." And 1 Peter 2:24 uses "by whose stripes you were healed" in a sentence about bearing sins and living to righteousness.

The traditions keep praying for healing and place the outcome with God. The Catholic Catechism calls the first grace of the Anointing of the Sick "a grace of strengthening, peace and courage," and says healing may come "if such is God’s will." The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese prays, "if it be Your Will, give to him (her) health and a complete recovery." Reformed Theological Seminary, on James 5, keeps "Thy will be done." The Association of Biblical Pentecostals includes "medical treatment" among the ways God heals, and warns against placing faith "in faith, words, or techniques rather than in God." The Jewish Mi Shebeirach asks the One who blessed our ancestors to "bless and heal the one who is ill."

When you cannot find words to pray

Paul writes in Romans 8:26, "we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered," a verse also read on what the Bible says about suffering. David, in the cave, says, "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my route."

Two prayers are one breath long: the Jesus Prayer as the Orthodox Church in America gives it, "O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," and the first three words of Psalm 13, "How long, Yahweh?" In Romans a groan counts as prayer, and in the psalm God knows the road the one praying has lost.

When church is hard to reach

Another person on Reddit's r/ChronicIllness wrote, "I want to feel love and support, even on days when the pain is too much for me to go and sit in hard chairs for two hours." Baylor University's 2024 report Toward Accessible Worship gathers the experiences of Christians with disabilities. The Church of England has a service called "Holy Communion at Home or in Hospital."

One idea of ours: ask your church for communion or a visit at home, or for a seat near the door you can leave quietly. Paul reminded the Galatians, "because of weakness in the flesh I preached the Good News to you the first time. That which was a temptation to you in my flesh, you didn’t despise nor reject." A church welcomed a man in his weakness, the same welcome you can ask of yours.

Grieving the life you had

On Reddit's r/ChronicIllness, one person wrote, "I will never live the life I dreamed of, and I am so bitter and afraid and hurt." Nancy Eiesland, in The Disabled God (1994), presents the risen Christ as "the disabled God," and argues that the disabled body belongs within the image of God.

Paul names his own body's decline in 2 Corinthians 4:16: "though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day." The loss and the renewal share one sentence. Its "pressed on every side" is read on Bible verses for stress.

When to get medical help

NHS inform describes chronic pain as "pain that lasts for longer than 12 weeks despite medication or treatment." In the UK, Royal Surrey's chronic pain leaflet gives NHS 111 for urgent advice and 999 for emergencies. Elsewhere, call your own doctor or emergency number when pain changes suddenly. For people who know this life, try Pain UK in the UK, the U.S. Pain Foundation in the United States, Pain BC in Canada, and Chronic Pain Australia.

Where to go next

Tonight, read Psalm 13:2 with the verses around it, once. If the night grows too long: 988 in the United States, 9-8-8 in Canada, Samaritans on 116 123 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, and Find A Helpline everywhere else. Or describe what you are carrying, and Bible Nudge can suggest a single passage. Find a passage.