Philip Yancey wrote Where Is God When It Hurts?, a book examining suffering and pain in the believer's life. A lot of people ask the question in some form or another. It feels like, when things hurt, He's far off. Not paying attention. It feels like He's being capricious or just doesn't care. So ... what does Scripture say?
Who can forget David's bold claim, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Psa 23:4)? Paul wrote, "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38-39). Hebrews says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb 13:5), which is a quote from the Old Testament (Deut 31:6; Josh 1:5; 1 Chron 28:20). It is, in fact, a "double negative," not in the sense of a positive, but in the vein of "never, never." Emphatic. Jesus was called "Immanuel" (Matt 1:23), meaning "God with us," because He's always with us.
You can see, then, a trend. We think that God ... comes and goes. He gets close and then far. He's paying attention and then He's not. It feels that way. It's ... not ... true. He ... never ... leaves. So ... where is God when it hurts? Right there ... right alongside. Never far. Never distant. Never negligent. The sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be. The author of Hebrews says that because He has promised to never, never leave us, "we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'" (Heb 13:6). Now isn't that exactly what we need when times are tough?
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