Where is God when it hurts?

 

The question is painfully familiar. In every moment when we suffer, we raise our tearful eyes to heaven and ask what all this pain accomplishes.

 

Will warring nations come to peace because the children starve? Not likely. Will all the daily indignities of living without water and without wealth adjust the fairness of the planet? Not on any planet we know. Will sleepless nights and searing pain ensure some future happiness? There are no guarantees.

 

And does God know how much we hurt when bodies ache and hopes fall flat? “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death” (Heb 2:14).

 

Jesus is God’s answer to the riddle of our pain. The One who made the universe came down to walk our roads and eat our food and feel our loss and cry our tears. He stands beside us; with us; on our side. Grace is God’s presence in our loneliness.

 

“Whoever has the Son has life” (I John 5:12). Meaning will yet rise from all this broken ground.

 

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott