His Companionship in Our Distress

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| His Love in Suffering series |

• Rejoice in Suffering
• Why We Suffer
• His Plan for Our Pain
• His Companionship in Our Distress

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“When I set aside what I wish He would do for me with His power, I begin to see how much He does for me with His presence.”

I wanted to talk about God’s love for us.  As I think about His love, my thoughts are often drawn back to the question of pain and suffering.  When we are in distress it’s easy to wonder where God is if He loves us.  Sometimes, the presence of suffering can feel like evidence that He doesn’t care.  But the Bible is actually quite comfortable declaring His love for us and acknowledging our suffering in the same breath.

For example, consider John 14-17 when Jesus is talking to His disciples at the last supper leading up to His arrest and crucifixion.  In these chapters, Jesus is preparing His followers (including us) for the hardships they will face after He is gone.  He paints a sobering picture when He says that we will be hated, we will be persecuted, and we will have tribulation (distress illustrated by the feeling that there is no way out).  Yet throughout this passage Jesus assures the disciples of His love for them and the Father’s love for them over and over (John 14:21, 14:23, 15:9-10, 15:12-13, 16:27, 17:23, 17:26).  So, He assures us of His love while He foretells of our tribulation.  The troubling reality then is that God doesn’t always display His love by keeping us from suffering.  How then does He display His love?

In this same passage in John, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit so that we will never be alone: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor – Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever.” In Romans 5, Paul makes plain that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” In fact, Paul says this immediately after He encourages us to “rejoice in our sufferings”.  Only a few chapters later, Paul declares how unimaginably persistent God’s love and companionship are throughout our hardships: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … 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.”So it is that, while He does not promise a life without suffering, He unequivocally promises a life with His companionship.When we are in pain, He never leaves our side; He is ready to Help us, ready to Comfort us, ready to Advocate for us, ready to Intercede for us, ready to Counsel us, ready to Strengthen us, ready to Stand by us.  When I set aside what I wish He would do for me with His power, I begin to see how much He does for me with His presence.

Hardship doesn’t mean that God’s love is far off; rather, He is right next to us in our suffering, longing to comfort us.Consider how Jesus took comfort regarding His own suffering on the cross in the same passage in John we were just discussing – “you … will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”  When we are in distress, we know beyond any doubt that He is right there with us, comforting us through it.  Over the coming weeks, I would like to illustrate this through a few stories about people that God loved who suffered.  Know that God cares for you.  You are not alone.  When you’re hurting, remember that He is right beside you.  He is ready to talk with you about it, ready to truly listen, ready to comfort you – because He loves you.