Today's promise: God protects His people
Does God Care When You Suffer?
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. Romans 8:18 NLT
The problem of suffering
"Of the hard 'why' questions, 'why is there suffering?' may be the hardest. This is probably because it not attacks us personally, but also because whenever the question is raised, the question of God's part in suffering follows close behind… We are desperate for the meaning behind all this. We seek some someone to blame or deliver us, and that always leads to our view of God."
Doesn't God care when we suffer? Of course he does. Then why doesn't he do something about it? He did. Becton sums it up this way:
"The answer is the cross of Jesus Christ.… From now on all human suffering must be understood in the light of his suffering; it is the source of meaning, hope, and new life for sufferers. When someone cries out, 'He doesn't care. He's immune to pain,' they are brought to the foot of the cross to see for themselves.… The cross and resurrection hold the key to the mystery of suffering."
Adapted from Embracing Eternity by Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins and Frank M. Martin,, Tyndale House Publishers (2004), p 3
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C S LEWIS
Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House
Suffering comes. The problem I have really is not that it comes, but when it comes the sufferer can be so alone. It seems taboo, the thought of having someone we can confide in, a safe, listening empathetic ear who will not turn into Bildad, Zophar, or Eliphaz with their nouthetic expository babbling based upon plausible (but not necessarily truthful) assumptions about the sufferer’s situation, assumptions which were based upon commonly accepted human reasoning and well established practices. Martin Luther must have suffered profoundly and probably had moments when he felt that no one friend was left as he carried God's commission forth to return to the truth of scripture from human practices involving indulgences. Yet it is moments like these that one can long for that one compassionate voice to utter one apt word and it doesn't come. The sufferer is plausibly assumed hell-bound as the rich man who saw Lazarus nigh the lap of Abraham, when he begged for just one drop of water. Instead the sufferer faces rejection when he tries to reach for grace, only to find his spirit being wounded by the responses of the common ones. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear (Prov 18:14)? Often the suffering one will not only be subjected to rejection among his peers, but will also face the scourge of slander as the common ones wiggle their tongues to each other about his situation. The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly (Proverbs 18:8). This world is so full of righteous people who will by their commonly accepted practice and human reasoning eclipse the very grace of God towards one who suffers. Let it be known that when I come forth from my trials, the ones who have been God’s conduits of true grace will be my close and real friends.
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