The Ultimate Answer

Is God listening? YES! Don’t misinterpret His silence as not hearing you (Genesis 17:20; 21:17; 29:33;  30:6; Exodus 2:24; 3:7). He responds in His time and in His way. Even if we must experience our own death or the death of someone we love. He promises to carry us safely to His heavenly kingdom.

Jesus is the ultimate answer to our ultimate suffering — death. His work on the cross, His resurrection and ascension, proves that we are forgiven and restored to intimate relationship with God. Believe that He is faithful. For after any dark night of our souls in which “Weeping may tarry for the night,” know that, “. . . joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30).” Our Father loves us too perfectly to rescue us too soon.

Helping Others Who Are Suffering

1 Corinthians 1:3-5, “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”

As suffering humans turn to Christ, they experience His supernatural comfort. This, as St. Paul says in the above verse is so that we may comfort as we have been comforted. The most loving encouragement we can give people is to turn to Christ. The hidden blessing for us in this is alignment with God’s will (Philippians 2:4-8 The Kenosis Passage) and the resulting peace, joy, freedom and power that comes with that (Philippians 4:13).

We can confidently expect that suffering God’s way will actually deliver us from suffering and pain. We can “cast our cares on the LORD and He will sustain us.”  We will even learn to be thankful for the suffering!

Blessings,
Cheri

Additional resources:

• Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even when Life Hurts (Colorado Springs: NavPress 2008).
• Dave Duel, “Singing through Our Suffering,” Journal o the Christian Institute on Disability, 5, Issue 1 (Spring/Summer 2016): 15-29.
• Books of Job, Lamentations, Jeremiah and the sixty-seven psalms of lament.
• Charles Spurgeon, “Afflictions!” Grace Gems, gracegems.org/2018/11/Afflictions.html (accessed November 18th, 2020).