WHERE IS GOD WHEN I'M HURTING?

Job 23:10 “But He knows the way that I take. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as refined gold.”

One of the biggest speed bumps to understanding God can be our encounters with pain and suffering. The hurts we experience may stem from abandonment or abuse, sorrow and loss, fears and failures, setbacks and confrontations, chronic illness and pain - the list is long. We all hurt for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes God’s hand of comfort and his compassion toward us in our pain and sorrow is so wonderful we can’t describe it. He appears on the scene of our calamity with assistance and provision and we stand in awe of his presence. At other times, however, he seems distant and disinterested, like he’s moved and hasn’t left a forwarding address. He has all the power and provision necessary to alleviate our misery but he doesn’t seem to be lifting a finger to come to our rescue. It’s at times like that when our faith is tested. Our cries for help seem to go unanswered; our thirst for answers unquenched. If we’re not careful we can become fearful and disillusioned with God when we’re hurting.

The classic biblical example of searching for God when you’re hurting is the story of Job. Job quickly lost his possessions, his health and his children in a succession of natural disasters. And even though he knew God, he made an honest admission in his pain. Have you ever had an experience like Job’s? Have you had those times when you searched for God and you couldn’t find him? You knew he was at work but you had no immediate indication that he was doing anything to come to your rescue in the midst of your pain? Where is God when I’m hurting?

HE’S PROMPTING POSITIVE CHANGES IN ME

What tests have you been experiencing lately? Do you think nothing good can come of them? If so, think again. Testing has the potential to burn out our impurities. Difficulties are part of God’s refining process. Our pain is often the fire that makes us better. And as we become a better person, we experience more of the joy and fulfillment in life that God created us to experience. We become more like God. Difficulties in our life have tremendous power to change us – for better or for worse. We get stronger or weaker – more positive or more negative. We become more hopeful or more cynical – depending on our response to our pain.

Sometimes our biggest problem is waiting. We don’t want to wait. We want to wrestle. We’re like Jacob in the Old Testament. We want to wrestle with God and we want to wrestle with our problems. But that’s not always what God wants. God wants us to approach our problems with faith in him. He wants us to exercise confidence in his timing. God doesn’t always take away our problems because, quite frankly, his goal isn’t for us to live a problem-free life. His design is for us to become more like his son Jesus.

GOD IS SHOWING ME THAT HE LOVES ME

The initial reaction to that statement is, “If God wants to show me how much he loves me why doesn’t he just stop the pain?” Sometimes, our hurts are not always because we have done wrong, but sometimes God doesn’t stop the hurting in our life because the pain is meant to keep us from straying off into even more hurtful and harmful territory. He loves us enough to protect us by confronting us with pain to make us think about how we’re living, how we’re thinking or acting. He loves us enough to use our pain as a boundary that keeps us from hurting ourselves even more.

If God were as weak-willed as we are he wouldn’t be as consistent in his discipline. But he’s not a doting father who gives his children everything they want when they want it because he knows that’s not always best for us. We want the pain to stop and God wants the pain to stop. He doesn’t enjoy disciplining us any more than we enjoy being disciplined. But he wants to burn the impurities out of our life.

Sometimes you’re going to have pain. Sometimes you’re going to hurt. Where is God when this happens? He’s right there with us because he loves us.