“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you, not leave or forsake you…”
According to Wikipedia authors, there are roughly 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Science estimates that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. More than 8 million species call our home their home. As of this writing, there are over 8 billion humans on Earth. The current Guinness estimates that over 5 billion Bibles have been printed and distributed, making it the most circulated book ever.
While preparing for this post, we found the following ask: “Why does anything exist? Before there was something, there was nothing. And out of nothing, how did we get something? What existed before the big bang, creation, and God?” Spoiler: we will not be answering this question in this blog.
What is worth exploring, however, is the age-old question: “Where is God in the midst of suffering?”. And along the same line, we ask, “Why does He allow suffering?”
On these points, we landed and the fact that we cannot get into the head of the Ultimate Creator or even begin to understand the complexities of the galaxies, the intricacies of creation, and the phenomenon of human formation. We are left to get what we need to know from the printed word of God, the Bible. This becomes our base, guide, and ultimate source to uncover insight into our big queries.
The book of all books documents thousands of occurrences of human suffering. Lack of hardship while living is never promised. Jesus himself suffered. We all suffer. Let's earnestly embrace the fact that it is inevitable.
The good news is that that same Bible reminds us, time and time again, that God is always with us. He is with us in the good times and in the bad times. He promises us dozens of times that he will never leave us.
Though we don't know why anguish comes about, we have learned that it is through distress that our relationship (which is what God desires) with Him can improve – if we choose to use the adverse condition as a growth moment.
For us, it is all about surrendering our desires for His will. It is a matter of trust. We are trusting in His plan, not ours. We did not create the universes. We did not form the human. We don’t decide on sorrow. We live trusting. We live to grow with Him. This is His show, not ours.
As for the unanswerable questions and our total trust, we are far from where we want to be but much further from where we were.
May we all draw closer today, not hindering the joys of today with the worry of the tomorrows.
“…Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Thoughts and ideas for this blog post were taken and built upon from asweunderstandhim.coffee podcast “Rooted Week 4 "Where is God in the midst of suffering?" with Tom The podcast dropped on 9/3/2023. Click here to hear the podcast.
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