Only a suffering God can help

What are some of the things that all people have in common? 

We’re all born and we all die. As pundits often say, we all pay taxes! 

Further, we all need food, oxygen and water. We probably all like to be happy and don’t like to be sad. Generally speaking, we want our lives to have some sort of meaning.

But there’s another thing we all have in common: Suffering and hardship. It’s not nice, but it’s true. Most people have experienced some sort of suffering. For some, it was in the past. For some, it’s right now. For some, it’s still to come. And, unfortunately, for some it’s all three.

Suffering is a part of life. One thing we often neglect, however, is that it’s also a part of God’s life. 

Is God sovereign and almighty? Yes. At the same time, he enters into human suffering, most notably in Christ on the cross. We are told very specifically that Jesus suffered in 1 Peter 3:18: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” We also find that detail is Hebrews 5:8 and Isaiah 53. All of this is a part of what it means for God to be “with” his people.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was killed for his opposition to the Nazis. He wrote a series of letters from his cell before he died. He wrote: “only a suffering God can help.”* Our God is not distant and aloof, as if disinterested from the plight of his people. Although suffering can be painful and unpleasant, only a God of loving closeness can see us through. 

God understands. He knows. He sees. So no matter what you’re going through…

Turn to him, again. 
Call upon him, again. 
Trust in him, again. 
Gain strength from him, again. 
And find new hope in him, again.

Notes:

-*Dietrich Bonhoefer, Letters & Papers from Prison (SCM Press: London, 1953), 122.
-“Suffering Like A Saint.” Click here. Sermon. 
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.