Making Sense of Pain: Where Is God in Our Suffering?
Pain has a way of raising questions that we might not ask when everything is going well.
Why does God allow us to go through painful things?
Does our pain have a purpose?
When will it end?
These are not new questions. Throughout history, the problem of pain has been one of the most challenging questions Christianity has had to wrestle with. And the Bible does not pretend that following Jesus means we will somehow escape suffering.
In fact, Scripture is filled with people who knew pain intimately.
Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. Moses never entered the Promised Land. Job lost his family. Ruth and Naomi experienced the loss of their husbands. David spent years running from his enemies. Paul suffered tremendously for the sake of the gospel.
The Bible doesn't shy away from pain.
But when we look at these stories, we also see something else: redemption. Their pain wasn't the end of their stories.
When Pain Becomes Comfortable
One of the strange things about pain is that we can become so accustomed to carrying it that eventually it feels familiar.
It becomes home.
Sometimes letting go of our pain can even feel more uncomfortable than continuing to carry it.
In John 5, Jesus encounters a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been unable to walk for years. Jesus asks him a surprisingly direct question:
“Do you want to be healed?”
That's a question worth sitting with.
There may be hurts we've carried for so long that they've become part of how we understand ourselves. We return to the memories. We replay what happened. We continue scratching at the wound.
But God's grace sometimes requires us to hand Him the very things we've been desperately trying to hold onto.
We May Not Get the Answer We Want
When we're hurting, we naturally want to know why.
Why did God allow this?
Why me?
Why didn't He stop it?
The book of Job reminds us that we may not receive the direct explanation we're looking for. Job brought his complaints and questions before God, but God never really gave him a simple explanation for everything he had experienced.
We may not receive one either.
There are things about our suffering that we simply may not understand in this life.
But Christianity gives us something other than a neat explanation for pain.
It gives us Jesus.
Jesus Entered Our Pain
Jesus is not a distant God looking down at a hurting world.
He entered it.
Philippians 2 tells us that Christ humbled Himself, took on human form and became obedient even to death on a cross.
Isaiah 53:4 says:
“Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering.”
At the center of the gospel is a Savior who saw a broken, fallen and hurting world and chose to enter it.
Jesus experienced suffering. He bore our sin and pain on the cross because He loves us and came to bring us to the Father.
That's why Hebrews 4 gives us such an important promise:
We don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Jesus understands. And because of Him, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and find grace when we need it.
Pain Reminds Us That This Isn't the End
There is also something about pain that reminds us that this world cannot completely satisfy us.
Even some of our happiest moments eventually become memories. Things we desperately want to hold onto pass away.
We were made for something greater.
Romans 8:18 says that the suffering we experience now cannot compare with the glory that will one day be revealed.
For those who are in Christ, pain does not get the final word.
God will redeem it.
That redemption may not happen in the way we expect—or even completely within this lifetime—but our Christian hope extends beyond this life.
Three Things to Remember When You're Hurting
We may never have every answer about the painful things we've experienced. But Scripture gives us three truths to remember.
1. Our pain points us toward a world greater than this one.
There is a place where we will finally experience true and lasting joy.
2. We worship a God who stepped into our pain.
Jesus understands suffering because He experienced it Himself.
3. One day, our pain will be finished.
It will be redeemed.
It will be completed.
It will be done.
Revelation 21 gives us a picture of that day: God dwelling with His people, wiping every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Neither will mourning, crying or pain.
The former things will have passed away. Making Sense of Pain.pdfPDF
Until then, we may still have questions.
We may still hurt.
We may still wonder why.
But we do not suffer with a God who is distant from our pain. We worship a Savior who stepped into it with us—and promises that pain will not have the final word.
Watch the full sermon, “Making Sense of Pain,” and join us as we continue growing together in Christ.
