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If you are a suffering believer, one biblical
certainty from which you can draw great strength is the knowledge that
God is suffering with you. He is not the "unmoved Mover" of
Greek philosophy. He is not an unfeeling Being oblivious to the pain of
His creatures. Nor is He a capricious Allah who carries out His will with
no feeling for those who suffer. On the contrary, He is our loving
heavenly Father. He hurts when we hurt. The psalmist declared, "As a
father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He
knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust" (Ps. 103:13-14). In
reviewing God's dealings with Israel, the prophet wrote, "In all
their affliction He was afflicted . . . ; in His love and in His pity He
redeemed them" (Isa. 63:9). The Old Testament prophets repeatedly
pictured God as delighting in blessing His children and as grieving when
they must suffer.
The truth that God hurts when we hurt did not find
full expression, however, until it was revealed in the person of Jesus
Christ. He is Immanuel, "God with us" (Isa. 7:14). He, the
second person of the eternal Trinity, became a member of our humanity. He
suffered everything we can suffer. He was born in a stable, a member of a
poor family. He grew up in a humble home in a small village. He worked as
a laboring man until He was 30. He didn't have a home during His 3 years
of ministry. He was resented by His half brothers. He was rejected by the
Jewish people to whom He came. He was misunderstood and misrepresented.
He was mocked. He was falsely accused. He was betrayed by a close
companion. He was forsaken by His closest friends. He was scourged. He
was forced to carry a heavy wooden beam on His lacerated back. He was
nailed to a cross. And even as He hung on it, He endured the taunts of
mockers.
Why did He do all this? Couldn't He have paid the
price for our sins without going through all of this humiliation and
abuse? As far as we know, the answer is yes. His death on the cross, not
his pre-Calvary suffering, atoned for our sin. It seems that He underwent
all this added pain and humiliation for two reasons: to reveal God's
heart (2 Cor. 4:6), and to become our sympathetic high priest (Heb.
4:15-16). God had always hurt when His people hurt. But He did so in a
real, tangible manner through the incarnation--through the event that
began in Bethlehem.
Are you sick? Are you suffering? Are you grieving?
Are you disappointed because you are going to die before you can realize
your plans and hopes? Be assured that God cares. He hurts with you. He
doesn't like what you are enduring any more than you do. He could
intervene and heal you instantly. But if He were to do this for you and
every other person who is suffering, no one would have a need for the
kind of faith that builds Christian character. Therefore, He allows us to
suffer. But all the while He, like you, is looking forward to the time
when all human pain will be over.
J. I. Packer has stated this truth eloquently: God's
love to sinners involves His identifying Himself with their needs. Such
an identification is involved in all love: it is indeed the test of
whether love is genuine or not . . . . It is not for nothing that the
Bible habitually speaks of God as the loving Father and Husband of His
people. It follows from the very nature of these relationships that God's
happiness will not be complete till all His beloved ones are finally out
of trouble . . . . He has in effect resolved that henceforth for all
eternity His happiness shall be conditional upon ours. Thus God saves not
only for His glory, but for His gladness (Knowing God, InterVarsity
Press, 1973, p.113).
Just as a good husband suffers when he sees his wife
in pain, and loving parents feel the distress of their children, so also
the Lord hurts when you hurt. And He won't be completely happy until you
hurt no more.
Curtis
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