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.