Job's Great Mistake

Suffering 9

 

          To study the subject of suffering in the Word of God and in human history both is to encounter Job. In fact, this blog series on suffering was indirectly birthed out of a desire I had to finally come to a good understanding of the book of Job. Last week we traced the progression of Job’s faith in God becoming Job’s frustration with God, and the isolation that comes to each of us when God is silent. In today’s post, I want to put my finger on Job’s single greatest mistake.

Galileo by Felix Parra
c 1873

          In the 1600s, Galileo, one of the great scientists of the Renaissance, asserted that Ptolemy had been wrong 15 centuries prior in positing the Earth as the center of the known universe. For his pain, Galileo was roundly condemned by all and sundry, and spent much of the latter part of his life defending himself against attacks and suffering negative consequences as a result of his position.

          Galileo’s world was no more guilty than our own of thinking everything revolves around us. We are all of us prone to be egocentric. Indeed, I would argue that even good Christians do that. We want relief from our suffering. We want vindication in the eyes of our detractors. We want deliverance from our pain. We want restoration of that which was taken away. We view the Word of God primarily as given to help us rather than primarily being the revelation of God. When things do not make sense in our lives, we demand an explanation from God.

…but the universe does not revolves around me; it revolves around God

Colossians 3:3–5

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

          Job’s indescribable pain, Job’s devastating loss, Job’s deep suffering is met with the silence of God. And when God finally speaks, He does so sternly to all involved, including Job. It is as if He says to Job, “Here I am; who are you?”

 

Job 38:1–4 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel By words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; For I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.

Job 40:1–4

Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said, Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

          The simple yet vital truth is the universe does not revolve around us; it revolves around God. God desired to use Job for His own glory in a contest with Satan. Job did not like it much, and understood it even less. But God is God and Job was not, and in the final analysis, that is all Job needed to know.

          When you and I suffer we almost always make the same great mistake Job did. We focus on ourselves, on our circumstances, on our pain. In so doing, we are as wrong as Job was. To me, the great lesson of Job is that we ought instead to focus on God, on Who God is, and what God is choosing to do with and in my life for His own purposes. My suffering is not about me. My response to my suffering is not about me. Every bit of that ought to be about God.

Job 42:1–6

Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, And that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel Without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: But now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent In dust and ashes.

          In essence, Job says, “You know me, everything about me. I, quite obviously, know entirely too little about You and Your ways. In my smallness, I demanded answers of you, but now that I see You I realize I was wrong to demand answers. I see You – and that is enough of answer all by itself. I repent of my selfishness.”

          Beloved, the great need in our suffering is not for it to end. It is not for us to obtain comfort. It is not for us to grasp the why. No, the great need in our suffering is for us to see God. To place Him front and center, to give Him the preeminence, to realize we orbit His Sun and not the other way around. And in seeing Him we will find all we really need.

          He – all by Himself – is enough. Just Him.

Job's Hell

 

Suffering 8 

Job and His Friends
by Ilya Repin, c 1869

          In the last few weeks we have examined the meaning of the word “suffering” in the Scriptures, and looked at how God goes before us in His own suffering. Today and next week, I want to turn my attention to the greatest non-divine object of suffering in the Bible, namely, Job.

          As a regular reader of the Bible for decades, I have read through Job numerous times. However, as I got older, I became increasingly frustrated with the fact I did not understand it very well. Thus it was that several years ago when I began preparing this series I set out to study the book of Job. When I do long-term preparation it generally involves three things. First, I read the book repeatedly, out loud, preferably all in one setting. Second, I read commentaries about the book. Third, I read books on the major themes touched on in the scriptural book I am studying.

          With Job, I did all three of these. Because Job is a fairly complex book, it helped me to print the entire thing out, and to color code it based on who is speaking. Job was one color, God another, Satan another, Bildad another, etc. That helped me very much as I sought to understand the flow of thought in the text. I also gathered several commentaries on Job, and several books on the theme of suffering. Slowly, it began to come together. In these two posts, I am not going to tell you everything I learned about the book of Job, but I do want to give you several key observations I have made along the way.

          We see that Job did indeed suffer, and suffer deeply. It is my opinion that Job’s children were living contrary to the Lord. (Job 1.5) That brought suffering. He lost his oxen, asses, sheep, and camels. (Job 1.14-17) That brought suffering. He lost his children. (Job 1.18-19) That brought suffering. He lost his health. (Job 2.7) That brought suffering. His marriage was deeply damaged. (Job 2.9-10) That brought suffering. His friend’s sincerely yet errantly attacked his integrity. That brought suffering. He lost his reputation. That brought suffering. And in his pain God was silent. That brought suffering.  

          If suffering is rooted in loss, then Job suffered more than anyone else I have ever heard of. From what I can gather, of all he had acquired – spiritually, emotionally, physically - there were only three things he did not lose. He did not lose his integrity. Of course, I would argue integrity is not something you can lose; you can only give it away. He also did not lose his faith. Likewise, that is not lost so much as given away. Nor did he lose his life.

          Everything else he had, everything, he lost. He lost most of it suddenly. He lost most of it without any rational reason he could point to or understand, nor could anyone give him an adequate explanation for why it had happened. Furthermore, his support system – his wife/friends/God – only caused him additional pain in the midst of his deep suffering. Is it any wonder he responded badly?

          Job’s response, which I have just described with the adverb “badly”, is worth noting. In order to do that, I am going to include more Scripture than I normally would with a blog post; I appreciate your patience with me here.

          At first, Job remained firm in His trust in Jehovah.

Job 1:20–22

20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return thither: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.

22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

          He also rebuked his wife when she verbally expressed her frustration with God.

Job 2:10

10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

          By implication here, Job realizes it is neither fair to Him nor right to always expect God to pour out unending blessing in this life.

          Over time, however, Job’s attitude toward his suffering begins to deteriorate. I noticed something similar in myself when dealing with covid. At first, I expressed faith, sought to follow my conscience in obeying both God and the government, and took things in stride. But as the weeks became months my attitude went downhill. Job and I are not unique in this. For the most part, it is sadly normal for spiritual people to respond well at the first sudden onset of suffering in their life only to slide into anger, questioning, and accusation toward/with God later.

          Thus it was with Job. Soon enough, he is expressing his own frustration with God. Why will God not answer him? Why will God not explain Himself? What is the point of life if it is only to live in the never-ending misery it had become?

Job 3:20–23

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul;

21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; And dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22 Which rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave?

23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in?

          This frustration with a silent God, a God who was mysteriously afflicting great pain on him, leads to his lament. He still trusted God, but that God was silent, and refused to either explain or eliminate his suffering, nor would God grant him the meagerest crumb of comfort. Then what is the point? There is no hope, no strength to endure, no help – life is sheer misery.

Job by Leon Bonnet
c 1880

Job 6:8–13

8 Oh that I might have my request; And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!

9 Even that it would please God to destroy me; That he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

10 Then should I yet have comfort; Yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; For I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.

11 What is my strength, that I should hope? And what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

12 Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

13 Is not my help in me? And is wisdom driven quite from me?

          Eventually, in an inevitable development, Job arrives at the place where he thinks it would have been better for him to have never lived in the first place.

Job 3:11

11 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

          What is key to understand here is that this not merely suicidal ideation. This is an indictment against the God who created Him, protected Him, provided for Him, blessed Him, and now apparently tortures Him. This is his great sin. In Job 1 he is without fault but by the end God is reproving him harshly. Why? In asserting that God was being unfair to Him, either in allowing His suffering or not explaining His suffering, Job is saying that God was wrong. Job's position is that God is actually unrighteous, which is an awful indictment of God. Yet in all of this, Job still believes in God, even argues for the theological point that God is aware of what is happening to him. Indeed, God is omniscient; He does not ignore us. Believing this, however, only makes it worse for Job. God knows of his misery – and is doing nothing.

Job 7:19–21 

19 How long wilt thou not depart from me, Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

20 I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, So that I am a burden to myself?

21 And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, And take away mine iniquity? For now shall I sleep in the dust; And thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

          The result of this landslide of suffering in Job’s life was complete isolation, a result that is all too common in our more modern day experience. Suffering involves loss, and that loss metastasizes. It does not remain contained within the strict confines of the area in which the loss was actually experienced. Like a contagion, our losses begin to mount, and as they mount we become increasingly isolated.

          Think with me, for a moment, of what happens in the life of a pastor who commits adultery or embezzles from church accounts. He loses his integrity. He loses his job. He loses his meaning for life, his purpose for existing. Most of the time, he loses his friends. He loses his church. He often loses his family. And he suffers much damage in his relationship with the Lord. What a landslide of isolation!

          While you can and perhaps should argue that pastor’s suffering is self-inflicted, you cannot argue that Job’s suffering was self-inflicted. It was God permitted and satanically inflicted. Though that was true, Job ends up isolated anyway.

          Due to their theological ineptitude and their attacks on his integrity, he ends up isolated from his friends.

Job 6:14

14 To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.

…

Job 16:2 

2 I have heard many such things: Miserable comforters are ye all.

          Even if our friends do not condemn us in our loss as his unjustifiably did, they often disassociate themselves from us. Even when they do not disassociate themselves from us, they do not in any way understand what we are enduring. They cannot, for the simple reason they have not endured what we are enduring.

          Some years ago, I stood waiting in my church foyer for the last person to leave so I could lock up. I had already turned the rest of the lights in the building off, and we stood pleasantly conversing in the foyer. As the last person turned to go, they casually threw out a remark that devastated me. I mumbled goodbye, stumbled up the stairs to my darkened auditorium, and wept all alone on the back row of that vast, quiet, dark room. No one knew I was there weeping. If they had, they would not have understood why, nor could I possibly have explained it. That individual’s remark had unintentionally pierced a protective barrier I had erected around some painful facts in my heart. I sat on the back row, emotionally bleeding out, with no one the wiser. I was all alone. Except Him.

          In addition to becoming isolated from his friends, Job also felt cut off from God. When a lost man experiences pain, he seeks solace in whatever he can find, his bottle, his pills, his therapist, etc. The carnal man is largely similar. The spiritual man, however, turns to the Lord. Which only makes the silence of God, the lack of response or explanation or comfort from God all the worse.

Job 9:13–18

13 If God will not withdraw his anger, The proud helpers do stoop under him.

14 How much less shall I answer him, And choose out my words to reason with him?

15 Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, But I would make supplication to my judge.

16 If I had called, and he had answered me; Yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.

17 For he breaketh me with a tempest, And multiplieth my wounds without cause.

18 He will not suffer me to take my breath, But filleth me with bitterness.

…

Job 23:3–9

3 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!

4 I would order my cause before him, And fill my mouth with arguments.

5 I would know the words which he would answer me, And understand what he would say unto me.

6 Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.

7 There the righteous might dispute with him; So should I be delivered for ever from my judge.

8 Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; And backward, but I cannot perceive him:

9 On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:

          Often, the Lord graciously comforts us in our suffering. We are reminded of previous experiences of loss, and how God blessed us through them as we trusted Him. Friends gather to offer genuine solace. Music moves us, reminding us of God’s greatness and goodness. The peace of His creation soothes us. We read the Word, and the Spirit ministers a balm to our heart. We hear the Word preached, and the Comforter again does His best work in us.

          …but sometimes, there is no balm. Sometimes there is only silence. All the things that have previously ministered comfort to our aching heart are entirely out of reach. We are tantalized by the comfort others flaunt for their inferior grief, but nothing touches our heart. We sit on the back row, emotionally bleeding out, invisibly so to those around us, apparently. The darkness is so thick it can be felt. And even God is silent.

          When God is silent we are in hell.

Six Sufferings of the Saviour

 

Suffering 7

 

He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath boren our griefs, And caried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53.3-4

 

          Any study of suffering must constantly come back to Jesus Christ. No man ever suffered as much or as well as He did. The biblical references to His suffering are many in number and deep in emphasis.

          At the outset, let me briefly mention two foundational truths we must understand if we are going to rightly apply Christ’s example of suffering. First, Jesus was fully human. The incarnation is a precious and vital doctrine. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1.14) He did not have a sinful nature, but everything else it was to be human Jesus was. For example, humans are emotional creatures; Jesus was emotional. Second, Jesus was (and is) sinless. Following our previous example, this means He experienced all of these human emotions without sinning. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4.15)

          Two important applications flow from these two truths. First, it cannot be intrinsically sinful to sorrow, to hurt, to grieve, or to suffer. While we certainly can respond to these feelings sinfully we can also respond to them righteously. Thus, second, if we can learn to respond to suffering and grief and pain like Jesus did then we, too, can suffer without being sinful.

          So how did He suffer?

          First, Jesus suffered in His humanity. What I mean here is that Jesus felt and experienced what every human being who has walked this vale of tears has suffered. Since Eden, we live in a fallen world. No, He was not a sinner, but He experienced the human suffering we all experience. We call it life. He was tired from time to time. He tasted hunger and thirst. His muscles ached with soreness. At some point, He probably injured himself in some way while working or playing. That work was as much labor to Him as ours is to us, as exhausting as ours is.

          Second, Jesus suffered with compassion. On the surface, this seems a funny thing to pair with suffering, but it makes sense if you think about it. Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian author who died last month, said, “Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you.” As a compassionate individual, you are always carrying the grief and sorrow and injustice and suffering of others in your own heart. They are dipped in grief and you taste the sorrow.

          Jesus had compassion on the multitudes. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. (Matthew 9.36) He also had compassion on the individual. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. (Luke 7.12-13)

          He had (and has) compassion for the burdens, trials, heartaches, handicaps, disease, baggage, loneliness, fear, worry, the chains of their sin, and the consequences of their sin. Of course, this is not compassion for sin or on sin; it is compassion on people struggling to carry the result of sin, the curse of sin. Jesus therefore again groaning within himself cometh to the grave. (John 11.38) For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. (Romans 8.22) As we wrote last week, if you carry it, He cares. If you care, He cares. What matters to you matters to Him. He enters into it with His compassion and sympathy.

          Third, Jesus suffered with grief. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. (Mark 3.5) This was a grief driven by the rejection and hardness of His people. Here, this grief manifested as anger, or perhaps we could say His anger was the secondary emotion caused by His grief. We see this elsewhere, as well, namely in the cleansing of the Temple precincts at the bookends of His ministry. B. B. Warfield, a 19^th century theologian said of this, “The emotions of indignation and anger belong therefore to the very self-expression of a moral being as such and cannot be lacking to him in the presence of wrong. We should know, accordingly, without instruction that Jesus, living in the conditions of this earthly life under the curse of sin, could not fail to be the subject of the whole series of angry emotions.”

          This grief or anger is over sin. Yes, He has compassion on us as we struggle beneath the effects of our sin, but some people do not struggle at all. They are not fighting sin but welcoming it, embracing it, wading full-body into a willful rejection of God. To endure that, as righteousness personified, is to suffer. Holiness suffers sin. Purity suffers defilement. And it hurts. For thirty-three years He lived amongst us. For three and a half years, He had it thrust in His face. He took it, but He grieved.

          Fourth, Jesus suffered with dread. Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. (Luke 22.42-46)

          I believe He knew Who He was and what His ultimate earthly destiny was by the age of twelve. It then follows He must have carried the dread of the cross for the balance of two decades, a dread that only grew as it loomed larger on the horizon. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. (Matthew 26.37-38)

          He was about to become sin for us. How painful that thought must have been to the morally perfect Christ. He was about to experience the wrath of His father as a result. How painful it must have been to feel the perfect, intimate, eternal relationship sundered, and to taste the Father’s wrath.

          This dread produced agony in Him, the only use of the original language word in the Bible. In contemporary times, the word use revolves around Olympic wrestling. He wrestled with His dread, wrestled with His desire to avoid the cross, wrestled with the devil. He wrestled so intensely His internal emotional agony evidenced itself as hematidrosis, bloody sweat. Historical medical cases of this have been observed in men waiting for battle or facing execution. Who in the days of his flesh, when had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. (Hebrews 5.7-8)

          Fifth, Jesus suffered the cross. Entire books have been written about just this aspect of His suffering, and justifiably so. The physical torture He endured was only exceeded by the emotional savagery of all He had to undergo. All of humanity’s sin and suffering and all of those eternity’s worth of punishment was compressed into a short span of time. But we see Jesus… that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Hebrews 2.9) It is literally indescribable.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Roger Fenton, 1855

          Sixth, Jesus suffered the final suffering of us all, death. We will all walk through that long valley – some of us with a slow and lingering tread, others rushed through on angel’s wings – but if the Lord tarry His coming all of us will walk it. As in all other things, He went before us even here. He closed His eyes, knowing yet not knowing what was on the other shore, trusting like we must that He would be raised incorruptible.

          Beloved, never forget, He went first. He felt and feels what we feel. He cares. He carried it all, not with His innate divinity, but in the power of the Spirit with the grace of God.

          And so can we.

Four Things God's Suffering Gives Us

 

Suffering 6

 

          Last week, we briefly examined the theological concept of impassivity – the idea that God does not experience suffering – and found it wanting. God suffers. Assuming I am right about that, what does this understanding bring us? How does the fact of God’s suffering help us?

          I propose it helps us in four ways. First, we have a God who notices us. Of course, we realize nothing escapes the gaze of an omniscient God. But beyond that, it is natural to notice when someone else is enduring what you have endured. I never played football. I can drive by a summer practice session at my local high school with nary a thought about it. But if you left everything you had on the hot dusty field of August two-a-days thirty years ago you still notice them when you drive by.

          The same thing is true of God. The Bible is the revelation of God, and in Exodus 3.7-10 it shows us a God who noticed the suffering of His people. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

          The Father understands suffering. You do not taste it unnoticed by Him.

          Second, we have a God who weeps when we weep. As our Father, can He do anything else? Many years ago, I quietly paused outside my son’s bedroom door. As many parents do, I was checking on him just before I went to bed. I cracked the door quietly so as not to disturb a seven year old boy’s slumber. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw him sitting up, rocking back and forth very quietly but very intensely, the kind of movement done by a child in emotional pain. Several times in the next few days I gently tried to ask him what was wrong that night but I never got an answer. He never repeated the action to my knowledge. Yet how often through these years have I thought of that night, and been grieved to think of my small son carrying his own grief, and been more grieved at my inability to help him with his. It is not an exact parallel with God and His own children, but enough of one that I think I understand it a bit. Fathers are marked deeply by their children’s suffering.

          I do not arrive at that by mere surmise; the revelation of God plainly tells us as much. The Weeping Prophet, Jeremiah, served a rebellious people haunted by sin and its accompanying sorrow. Jeremiah did not weep alone; God wept with him, and said as much. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9.1) This is the opening verse in a passage that ends six verses later with saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 9.6) Jeremiah wept. God noticed. And God wept.

          It then follows, third, we have a God who never asks us to go where He has not gone first. Put another way round, God has tasted the bitterness of rejection, the horror of a loved one’s transgressions, the despair of crushed dreams, and the anguish of a broken heart. Maybe I over-wrote that sentence. I do not want to make God human; He is not a man. (Numbers 23.19) But as every good leader has, He has gone first down the path He points us toward.

          Does He ask you to forgive an enemy? He understands what that is like. Does He ask you to love the unlovely? He understands what that is like? Does He ask you to have joy no matter how desperate the circumstance? He understands what that is like. Does He ask you to cultivate a heart at peace in spite of the storms that howl around you? He understands what that is like. And I could go on and on and on. He instructs us to weep with them that weep. (Romans 12.15) He has a right to instruct us to do so; He does so Himself, first.

          Fourth, then, it is apparent we have a God who cares. Again, we know this explicitly from revelation. Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (I Peter 5.7) If I care about you what matters to you matters to me. There are things my wife cares about that I care about solely for that reason – it matters to her so it matters to me. She and I have lived life together so closely for so long now we almost instinctively care about the same things the same way to the same extent. And God is immeasurably better at this than I am.

          What matters to you matters to Him. Are you lonely? It matters to Him. Are you frustrated with your health? It matters to Him. Are you in despair over a loved one? It matters to Him. Are you fearful of the future? It matters to Him. Are you grieved at America’s direction? It matters to Him.

          You do not suffer alone. He suffers, too.