Does God Understand About Human
Suffering?
If I declare that God does understand about the suffering of His loved ones, someone will lash back with the question which has been hurled angrily toward heaven since the beginning of human suffering: "If God understands, why doesn't He do something about it?"
God does understand about the suffering of His loved ones. And His loved ones are not limited to those who openly follow Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." In no way is His love limited to those who have seen their need of a Saviour. If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, His concern over the suffering in your life is just as great as is His concern over the suffering in my life. But because the Christian life is a strictly personal matter, you, by your unbelief, are blocking Him where your suffering is concerned. Just as you are blocking Him where eternal life is concerned.
God does not wave a magic wand over the head of anyone, either in the matter of eternal life or the healing of a human heart. Once and for all we must forget about cut and dried static processes. Once and for all, we must
Page 92
begin to see that the Christian life is a life lived person-to-Person with Jesus Christ. Together you and God work out the problems which come to you. Christians do not automatically become cosmic pets. And Christians who attempt to turn God into a cosmic errand boy, whose only work is to protect them from human suffering, have not seen the God of Calvary.
Just because you have always considered yourself a "believer," or because you have always gone to church; just because you "went forward" in a meeting, or gave yourself to Christ in the privacy of your own room, does not mean you have learned how to take His way for you in your times of suffering.
Jesus Christ declared Himself to be the way, and we learn His answers to our heart's need only by taking an active part in this person-to-Person relationship with Him. If we live the days of our lives ignoring Christ, except when we need to be protected from some sudden danger, we will find Him hard to contact when tragedy strikes. Not that He won't be there. He will be. But we will find ourselves so insensitive to His presence that it will seem to us as though He has hidden Himself from us. It is the human heart's way to jump to the conclusion that God has hidden Himself, when the truth is it is we who have thrown up the barricade from our side.
We ignore Him for so long at a time that we find ourselves suddenly unable to make contact with Him.
I recently spoke with a successful woman executive who said, "Oh, I've always prayed. When I was a child I used to pray that God wouldn't let my mother spank me when I got home late. And to this day, even when I start down a long flight of steps, I ask God to keep me from falling."
It was no amazement to me that this woman was, at the moment of our conversation, almost frantic with fear and worry over a difficult situation in her life. Her
Page 93
spasmodic contacts with God had been little more than superstitious cries for help. This was no constant person-to-Person relationship. If there was no one else around, and if she felt inadequate, or wanted to avoid something painful, then she sent up a little trial balloon toward heaven.
God does understand and He does act in our behalf when human suffering slashes across our hearts, but before He can act He needs our cooperation. He cannot merely shove us out of the way of pain. He would be a fiend if He pampered us in that way. Nothing destroys human character more than pampering. God's way is the way of character-building. His behaviour toward us during our times of heartache goes so far beyond the too common concept of the "comforting Father with a long white beard," that such an idea of God is blasphemy!
God does understand and He longs to act in our human suffering, but He cannot do it if He does not have our attention as well as our allegiance.
Our part is, first of all, to link our lives with His. To open all we know of ourselves to all we know of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." We will go into this in more detail in a later chapter, but believing in Christ simply means that you rest your entire case with Him. And if we know that He is one with God, who else is more capable of handling our cases?
I am well aware, however, that to most people this is a strange procedure. And it is strange because God is a stranger to them. If there is one point which I long to make clear in this book, it is the necessity for every human being to discover for himself what God is really like! Contained in this discovery is the potential of everyone's understanding of how to allow God to take over in time of suffering.
Few among us would approach a mere stranger on the
Page 94
street and pour out our hearts to him. We trust people with our deepest needs only after we get to know them well. By this I do not mean to imply that it requires many years to know Jesus Christ. It is true, the longer we know Him, the more easily we trust Him, but when we determine to find out about the true character of God, we have Jesus' own promise that the Holy Spirit will teach us. In fact, no one can learn of God without the inner enlightenment of the Holy Spirit of God. This Spirit invades our lives when we receive Christ, and we are from then on able to make discoveries about God which those who do not believe cannot make, no matter how intellectually agile they may be. "The Spirit of Truth... will guide you into every truth."
As we learn of God's true character, we are able to open ourselves, even in the midst of suffering, to the loving action He longs to take in our behalf.
The writing of this chapter has been interrupted by a telephone call from a man whom I had never seen, but whose voice betrayed so much suffering my heart was immediately involved in our conversation. For two years, since his release from prison, he has lost one job after another. As soon as his employer discovers his prison record (even though his slate has been clear since then) the little pink discharge slip appears in his pay envelope. The man has a Christian background. But as he talked to me by telephone, hoping I would have a lead on a job, he was not interested in religion. He was bitter toward God, although he seemed to have no question about His existence.
My heart sagged with the weight of his trouble and leaped with joy all at once. I think it is quite evident why my heart was heavy. His was a tragic story. But there was the joy element, too. Right there as I spoke with this gentleman, the contents of this book were being proved to me all over again! I could see that he didn't know what
Page 95
God is really like at all. He "believed" that Jesus Christ is God's Son, but it had no practical meaning on this icy cold Chicago day when he was suffering not only the pangs of actual physical hunger, but the agony of the heart well known to any man who longs to support his family and is frustrated at every turn.
This man felt that God had turned His back on him. I can still hear the hard-edged masculine voice, struggling to hold back tears of despair, "What else can a man think? I'm not asking anything of God except what any man has a right to ask — a chance to earn a living. If He hasn't turned His back on me, then He must be standing there laughing at me!"
Theological talk is of little value to a man with a pain in his stomach from not having eaten for two days. It is less valuable to a man with a pain in his heart because he cannot provide for his family. But I know, now and forever, that in the heart of every human being Jesus Christ has an ally. And as I discover more and more about the nature of God through my life with Christ, I become more boldly confident that He meant what He said about drawing all men unto Himself. I did not speak of a "plan of salvation" to this hungry, worried man on the telephone. I asked if he minded one personal question before we began to talk about job possibilities. He agreed, and this was my question: "Do you believe that the young Man hanging on the Cross was God Himself?"
He wasn't expecting a question like this to be called a personal question. There was a moment's silence, and when he spoke again, the hard edge in his voice was gone. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'd be a fool if I didn't. But what's so personal about that?"
"It's a strictly personal question, sir," I replied. "And it has directly to do with you as you stand there in that telephone booth talking to me. If that was God Himself on that Cross with His arms stretched out toward the
Page 96
whole world, do you think there is a remote possibility that this same God could not care about you right now?"
Little by little we began to speak of Jesus Christ Himself. The man had heard a lot of sermons, he knew some of the great Christian leaders, but he had never begun to respond to Christ in a personal way. We still haven't found a job for him, but we have some leads. And this man, who dragged himself from his bed hating life this morning, will go to sleep tonight, peaceful in the midst of his still unsolved problems.
In prayer with a friend of mine in a Chicago Loop office, he placed his case in the hands of the One who not only understands, but who now has the freedom to begin to act in the man's behalf. It is far better that his life was committed to Christ before a human solution to his work problem came about. He can know now that God Himself is deeply involved with him in all ways. In some instances, I am sure the prison record was the reason he lost his jobs. But I am also sure that a man with a chip on his shoulder against life is not a good risk as an employee. This man will need to "grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ," but as he grows, he will find it steadily easier to rest his case with Him. The more we know about Him, the more we trust Him. Even in the midst of our suffering.
The scope of human suffering is so wide it would be impossible ever to show in detail how God acts in our behalf in each particular kind of suffering. But in all, He acts always on one basic principle — identification with us in the suffering. Jesus Christ Himself is the Supreme Sufferer. In all our pain, we find God's way through it, if we allow Christ to meet us in it. He does not ask that we enter into a personal relationship with some distant formless God. He became one of us, so that we can drop our defenses against Him when our hearts are breaking. His heart broke too — willingly, for our sake. On the Cross the
Page 97
incalculable weight of our sin broke His heart. He is forever the God of the broken-hearted. And He is forever a Redeemer; not only from sin, but of every tragedy and heartache and pain. If we will give our suffering to Him freely and expectantly, without fighting Him for "causing" it, we will find that He will make some form of creative use of it. He will not waste even pain and suffering.
A careful study of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life on earth shows us that if we are willing to learn of Him, we will find His exact way of meeting our exact pain. For example, in Chapter 9 we considered the temptation Jesus experienced when He was invited to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple to prove that He was the Son of God. In this same temptation He has a definite word for those who are sufferers from accidents, too. There are many reasons why He didn't yield to this temptation, but one of them, I am sure, has to do with the questioning human heart which cries, "Why did God allow this terrible accident to happen?"
There is no pat answer here. But my heart rests on the fact that once more the Lord is saying to us, "Come now, and let us reason together."
Some years ago I spoke with a grandmother who had become bitter toward God because her grandchild had fallen to his death from her apartment window. "Why?" she wept. "Why would a God of love allow an innocent little boy to fall to his death?" In the first place, the boy's innocence had nothing to do with it. This woman had been faithful to her church, but this also had nothing to do with it.
Can we expect God to suspend the law of gravity because a Christian woman's grandchild leans too far out a sixth-story window? Our God is a God of order. But even above that, He remains a God of love. When I asked this grieving woman to consider that Jesus refused to
Page 98
protect Himself by jumping from the Temple, she began to see her way out of it. This did not bring her grandson back, but it began to lessen her bitterness toward God. If He had jumped from the pinnacle of the Temple in order to prove His identity, this woman would have been permanently and justifiably angry with God. She would have remained grief-stricken. Grief alone is conquerable in submission to Christ, but not if it is lashed to our hearts by bands of resentment. After we prayed together this woman said a penetrating thing: "Well, I guess the Lord Jesus knew about my grandson the day He refused to throw Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple." Then her face brightened. "You know, I believe He would have refused that temptation even if He had known that my child would be the only one to die that way!"
I agree with her. And I remembered her words less than two years ago as I stood by my beloved father's hospital bed. What does He have to say and what does He do for those who lie, day after day, hour after tortured hour, in hospitals and sickrooms? What does He have to say and what does He do for those lying pinned under wreckages of automobiles, or in the tangled cabins of planes that have crashed? Even in our fine hospitals there is suffering which no sedation can blot out or even dim. What does God say and do here?
Do we dare approach one of these pain-tormented persons with the fact of Jesus Christ? If we know Him as He is, yes. And we can be definite about it, too. In Mark 15:23 we are told that again Jesus Christ did not protect His own humanity in His hour of most intense physical pain. "And they offered him wine to drink, flavored with myrrh; but He refused it."
Wine mixed with myrrh was a sedative in those days. It was customary to offer it to the crucified to dull some of their agony. It was offered to Jesus on His Cross. He could have taken it and no one would have blamed Him.
Page 99
But He was thinking of all of His loved ones who would not be able to find relief from their physical pain. He was thinking of you. Of me. Of your loved ones. Of mine.
He was thinking, I now believe, of my own Father. During his last afternoon on earth, his suffering was intense. I was alone with him in his hospital room. Having learned that sometimes even the most sincere words are only rusty hooks jerked into the suffering of a human heart or body, I had just been standing there by his bed, holding his hand and saying nothing. He knew I was there. And he knew I was with him in it as much as I could be.
No matter how strong our faith in God, there are times when we don't dare bring it up as mere comfort. My Dad knew Christ intimately. He had already been showered with greeting cards, most of which reminded him that God would comfort him. Actually, he didn't even need to be reminded. His was a simple, strong, child-like faith. As I stood there and watched his suffering, I couldn't have attempted any kind of spiritual "chin-up." The words wouldn't have formed on my lips, least of all in my heart.
And so, I asked the Lord to show me something more about Himself in that dreadful moment. My own heart was breaking. But I didn't need to remind God of that. He already knew it. For several more minutes I just stood there beside the bed. And then I heard myself say quite quietly, "Dad, do you know what just came to me?"
He opened his eyes.
"I know now why Jesus refused to take the sedation they offered Him when He was hanging on the Cross. He knew this afternoon was coming up with us here and He didn't want you to think He'd take better care of Himself than can be taken of you!"
My Dad's mouth was too swollen from the leukemia blood blisters to smile. But since I was a child we had
Page 100
had a special private signal for each other which meant, in a way only the two of us understood: "I get your point. I'm with you." We were a great deal alike and usually reacted the same way to a situation. And when we did, we passed this private signal — a big, exaggerated wink. In a moment, after I had reminded him that Jesus refused the sedative on the Cross, he turned his head toward me and winked. He knew it was true. And I sensed immediately that my Father had moved still closer to the Lord he loved.
All the way through the temptations in the wilderness, Jesus Christ had His mind on us and on our temptations.
All afternoon as He hung on the Cross, Jesus had His mind on us and on our sufferings.
His mind is still on us. And He has not forgotten what it is like to be one of us. There is a Man on the throne up there.
A Man-God who remembers well what it's like to be a human being. A God-Man who is still in it with us.
A Redeemer-God who does not encourage us to say, "life shouldn't be this way." But who urges us to accept life as it is; who still reminds us that "in this life you will have tribulation."
There is a Man-God on the throne up there who entered this life and took part in its suffering, so that He can face us now in the midst of our falling tears and continue to say, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome" all that can ever harm you permanently.
To anyone in any kind of suffering, Jesus Christ has earned the right to say, "Come unto me... bring your pain here to me. Together we will find a way to make use of it. I am your Redeemer. We will not waste a single tear."
