How does God feel about our suffering?

God's Cycle of Comfort

Before I get to today's topic, let me briefly review what got us here.  In my last blog, I talked about "God's cycle of comfort."  Like Satan's "cycle of suffering" which goes from pain to lies to false relief and back to pain, God's cycle also starts with pain of any variety. This time however the suffering person turns to truth, truth that helps them find genuine relief either in the form of freedom from pain or at least the strength to endure it.  Having been given the precious gift of comfort, they share that gift with those who are suffering in similar situations, pointing them to the same truth.  Thus the cycle. 

One of the cool things I noticed about this cycle, now that I've drawn it counter-clockwise, is that it is in the shape of a "G".  Now when you see the "G" in "God", it can remind of you of His cycle of comfort.

The problem though is that sometimes we get the impression that God is indifferent to our pain.  We get this picture of God as being a calloused, personal fitness trainer, or maybe even a drill seargent, standing by our side as we strain at the weights shouting out "No pain! No gain!", "Come on! Is that all you've got?", and "My eighty-year-old grandmama can lift more than that!"  And though I try and paint a somewhat comical picture of the situation, the reality is that life's pains run deep and wide. 

Women are raped.  Children are abused.  People starve.  Families lose everything to tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes.  Sons and daughters die before parents, with some never making it out of the womb alive.  A worker gets laid off.  A spouse's love has grown cold.  A Mom and Dad get divorced.  With tears in our eyes we lift our faces to the heavens, raise clinched fists to the sky and cry out "God, do you even care???"

The best way I know to answer that question is to look at Jesus.  Jesus Himself said "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)  Seeing Jesus and His feelings, His reactions to our plights, will let us know if God cares or if God is cold-hearted.

Consider this story from John 11, as translated in the New International Version:

   Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) ³ So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
 ⁴ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, ⁷ and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
 ⁸ “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
 ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. ¹⁰ It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”
 ¹¹ After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
 ¹² His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
 ¹⁴ So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
 ¹⁶ Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
 ²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
 ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
 ²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
 ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
 ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
 ²⁸ After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
 ³² When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
 ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
   “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
 ³⁵ Jesus wept.
 ³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
 ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said.
   “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
 ⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
 ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
 ⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
   Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

While there is a lot I would love to talk about in this story, the main thing in light of our discussion here is Jesus' reaction to the weeping of Mary and those with her.  In the shortest yet one of the most profound verses in the Bible, John tells us that Jesus wept.  

It makes no sense.  Jesus knew from the outset that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.  He could have easily said "Calm down, people.  I've got everything under control.  You'll have Lazarus back in just a few minutes here," or anything else to that effect. 

But instead of telling people to get over their pain Jesus chose to feel our pain.  He chose to weep.  Jesus let Himself feel the pain of losing someone you love, the pain of knowing that you will never live another day on this earth hearing the sound of their voice, seeing the smile on their face, feeling the comfort of their presence.  Jesus felt it all, everything we feel, and He was deeply moved by it.
My son plays little league football.  A few weeks ago I took him to his game.  Of course being a parent you have to get there an hour or more before kick-off.  While I was waiting for my son's game to start I walked over and sat in the stands by the field where I thought he was going to play and watched a game already in progress. 

It was one of those games where one team was just clearly no match for the other.  The winning team was observedly bigger, stronger, and faster.  It was no surprise then when one of the boys on the losing team lay in agony at the end of one of the plays.  The coaches ran out.  The refs walked over.  It wasn't long before the words "broken arm" made their way from the field, to the sideline, to the stands where I was sitting.

I had no idea who the boy was, yet seeing him there and hearing what had happened, I felt a stirring within me.  A sadness came over me.  My eyes began to moisten.  An emotional pain gripped me as I looked on this poor youngster and thought of what had happened to him. 

Now if that is how I felt for a boy I never met, whose face and arm I couldn't even see, how much more than did God, who formed that child in the womb, who knows the very number of hairs on that boy's head, who most certainly knows his complete name and who sees that kid as one of His own sons, how much more than did He feel pain for that tiny football player? 

If I had been the boy, and if God Himself had been there and had come running over to me, I would fully expect, not to see some emotionless, hardened face, but to see the face of a loving father with tears streaming down.  I would fully expect, not to hear the voice of an annoyed parent saying "Oh, get over it, son.  Pain is good for you!", but to hear a tender voice saying "It's going to be okay, son.  Daddy's with you."  The reason I expect that is because that is what I see in Jesus.

I know we get upset with God.  I know we get mad at Him for allowing the pain in the first place.  For example, some may very well say "Well, if God loved that football player, He would never let His arm get broken in the first place!"

Look.  While I know some of the reasons that God allows us to experience pain in this life, I freely confess to you that I don't know all of them.  I don't know why sometimes God spares us and sometimes He doesn't.  What I do know is this: my choice is to serve a God who chooses to weep when I weep, or to serve a devil who chooses to take joy in my weeping.  I choose the God of Jesus Christ.  I hope you do too.

Thank you for reading!!!

Why is there so much suffering in the world? Satan's Cycle of Pain VersusGod's Cycle of Comfort Part 2 of 2

Satan's Cycle of Pain

In my last blog, I wrote about Satan’s cycle of pain.  It is a very simple cycle, yet sadistically brilliant.  Something in life causes us to suffer.  The pain can be physical such as an injury, emotional such as the sadness we feel when something depressing occurs, or spiritual such as when we have been victims of physical or sexual abuse.  That is when the devil and his forces step in with their lies, lies that point us in any direction but God for relief.  So we turn to addictive drugs, drunkenness, gluttony, porn, prostitution, revenge, cruelty, meanness, masochism, worldly obsessions and who knows what else to make ourselves feel better, or at least to keep ourselves from feeling worse.  The problem is that these forms of relief are not only temporary, but they actually lead to more pain, thus creating the cycle, except now our level of suffering has actually increased along with the need for stronger forms of relief.

The good news is that God of Jesus Christ, our Creator, has a much different cycle, one that is also simple to understand, yet beautifully brilliant.  I call it “God’s cycle of comfort.”   While Satan’s cycle was forged out of the fires of his hate for us, God’s cycle was conceived out of a deep, passionate love for His creation.



God's Cycle of Comfort

 Ironically enough God’s cycle begins in the exact same place – with pain.  It doesn’t matter what kind of pain it is, any form of suffering will do.  The big difference here is that God points us to truth, truth that can either relieve us of the pain or at least give us the inner strength to deal with it in a positive way.   This truth also sheds light on the lies of the Enemy, thus increasing our disdain for evil over time, instead of disdain for God.
Let me give you some examples. 

In God's cycle of comfort,
our hate for evil increases over time.

Perhaps I am filled with bitterness because I have been betrayed by a spouse, a friend, a coworker, or a classmate.  Jesus taught in Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. ”  Now if I embrace this truth, what will I do?  Forgive the person who did me wrong.  What happens to my bitterness when I forgive?  It is transformed into inner peace.  What happens to my view on bitterness and holding grudges?  I see the havoc that it wreaked, the evil fruit that it bore in my life, and it begins to sicken me.

But as I said earlier not all truth relieves us of the pain we feel.  Instead it simply gives us the strength to endure it, to persevere through it.  There is absolutely no better example of this than Jesus Himself.


Jesus was God’s Son.  He had the power to do anything.  The winds and the sea obeyed His command (Matthew 8:23-27).  He fed thousands on more than one occasion starting with enough food for just a handful of people (Matthew 14:13-21, Matthew 15:29-39).  The Divine Dude walked on water for crying out loud (Matthew 14:22-36)!

Yet when Jesus was being crucified, He didn’t save Himself.  His own murderers were mocking Him and basically “triple-dog daring” Jesus to save Himself (side bar: I hate Satan’s ways).  Yet instead of responding with “Oh yeah!  I’ll show you!”, He stayed there until it literally killed Him.

This begs the question: How in the world did He do it???  How did He maintain such unbelievable self-control in such a high-pain, high-stress situation?

Well, the writer of Hebrews tells us exactly how – Jesus embraced truth.  This is Hebrews 12:1-3:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [of people who had faith in God], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." [emphasis added]

What truth did Jesus embrace?  There was a joy that was coming, a joy that made the cross worth enduring.  By trusting the truth, Jesus found the inner strength He needed in the midst of His suffering to stay the course, and die to take the punishment for our sins.

Now this is where the beauty of God’s cycle of comfort rises to a whole nother level (nother really is a word, isn’t it?)  You see, if it ends with relieve of suffering, there is no cycle.  But God out of His passionate love for mankind doesn't want us to just sit there and stare at this incredible gift of relief from pain and strength to endure pain.  Instead, He wants us to share the gift!

In 2nd Corinthians 1:3-7 Paul writes, saying, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."

What does God want us to do?  Take the comfort we’ve been given and comfort others who are in similar situations!  How do we do that?  We point people to the same truths that helped / are helping us!  What happens when they embrace that truth?  They find true relief and then they go out and comfort others in similar situations!   That is beauty!  That is love!  And that's just one reason as to why our God is so awesome!

“Oh yeah!  If God were so loving, there would be no need for this cycle because He wouldn’t allow us to feel the pain and suffering in the first place!”  Look.  I am hearing you.  And such a large point of contention deserves another blog for another day, but in the meantime please let me give you my "Cliff’s notes" on this matter.

First major point:  How can I learn mercy in an environment where nobody needs it?  How can I learn compassion in a world where no one suffers?  How can I learn forgiveness if I live with perfect people who never make mistakes?  How can I learn to trust when doubt is never an option?  How can I learn the beauty of God’s ways in a world where the ugliness of Satan’s ways are not possible?  As I look at my life, I know have needed my trials, tears, sweat and suffering to see and understand God’s love for good and hate for evil.

Second major point:  A world without the pain and suffering of which you speak is exactly where God is taking us!  Let me please share with you truth of a coming joy, along with a warning, that can give you strength to persevere if you are following Jesus now or the inspiration to hop off of Satan’s cycle of insanity if you are not.

The following is Revelations 21:1-8.  This was a vision given to John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, of where God is going with all this so-to-speak. 

“Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth', for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' He said to me: 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."



My Third Major Point.
Hey!  What good is a blog if
you can't throw some humor into it?

I have had to deal with a lot of inner pain in my life.  Pain from failures and mistakes, pain from disappointments, pain from unrealistic expectations, pain from my clumsiness (can you say "Size 15 feet, boys and girls?"), pain from wherever.  In the end though I know that my pain is a drop in the bucket compared to what so many in life go through.  Still, what I have been trying to say in these two blogs can be summarized this way:  In the midst of my pain, Satan and his forces have tried to destroy me out of a hatred for me and my loved ones.  God and His forces have tried to help me and make me a better person out of their love for me and my loved ones.  It is the same for you, the same for us all.  Choose this day whom you will serve.

In all this you may have come away with the impression that God is calloused toward suffering, that God has a "It's good for you, so get over it" attitude when it comes to our pain.  The reality is quite the opposite of this, a reality I hope to write about in my next blog.

Thank you for reading!!!