Congenital Analgia is a condition afflicting children that makes them insensitive to pain. Heart-breaking are the stories of children who injure themselves, but because they feel no pain, are unaware of serious injuries. One family reported that their children had bitten off the tips of their fingers and tongues, burned their hands, cut themselves, and broken their bones.

While I am sure there are times when we all would like to forgo the experience of pain; it does serve a useful purpose. Pain tells us that something needs attention—that we need to quit doing what it is that we are doing. Pain forces us to rest and heal. Ignoring pain frequently results in greater injury. Imagine how it would be to have no feeling—no pain. Paralyzed some time earlier in a bus accident, a friend was wearing a new bandage on his foot. What happened? He had placed his foot on a hot surface but, because he could feel no pain, his foot had been severely burned.

What lesson is there in this for us? There is a state of spiritual analegia produced by persistent sin. Paul describes some who had become spiritually callous and had lost their ability to feel remorse (Eph. 4:19). Such is the condition of many who have given themselves over to sin. The author of the book of Hebrews spoke of a time when it becomes “impossible to renew them to repentance” (Heb. 6:6). Paul warned Timothy of those who, “by means of the hypocrisy of liars”, had “seared their own conscience as with a branding iron…” (1 Tim. 4:2). I have a younger sister who, when she was very young, laid a hot iron upon her hand. She let or a scream. She felt pain. Fortunately, her cry was heard and she received the help she needed.

Unfortunately, there are many who ignore the cry of the guilty conscience. The pain of remorse is squelched and hardness of heart begins to set in. When this process is repeated over and over again, the conscience is silenced or its voice becomes so faint as to be hardly noticeable. Continuing in sin is like burning our hearts with a hot branding iron. Consider what sin does to your heart. The tragedy of spiritual analgia is infinitely more tragic than the tragedy of congenital analgia. Physical illness is but for a season—confined to this life. Spiritual analgia is a progressive disease leading to spiritual death, the results of which will be felt forever. While some have tried hard to become callous and insensitive, there will be no such insensitivity in eternal torment. There the pain will be intense and everlasting along with the memory of what might have been had they chosen a different course in life. We must not make the same mistake. Instead, we must faithfully educate our conscience according to the word of God so that we will avoid those things which lead to eternal misery.