Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There are people who suffer so much pain, have endured so many disappointments, been crushed so often, offered so many apparently unanswered prayers, that they are seriously tempted to conclude that God has forsaken them.People who have never suffered pain seem unable to comfort them. One wonders if even angels can comfort them-what pain have they endured? Even God Himself--what can He say to them? Has He endured the pain that His created beings have been forced to feel?
When pain becomes terribly severe, someone far wiser than I am says, "Don't try to think; rest in the love of God."
But what does it mean to do that? God has said something that we must grasp: He has promised that He will not permit any pain to become so bad that it blots out the possibility of our choosing to believe His love. In other words, no matter how dark the night, God will not permit the darkness to be so dark as to blot out the last candle flicker of light! On the cross, His Son felt to the full what it really means to be "forsaken of God," for He cried out, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). Christ went through that for a great reason: no human soul need ever taste the fullness of that horror!
But where has God promised never to let us feel pain or suffering so bad that it becomes impossible for us to believe in His love? Here it is: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able" (1 Cor. 10:13). What does the word "tempt" mean? It means to suffer trial; and that includes the suffering of pain.
The Father did not exempt Himself from feeling our human pain. When Christ suffered the exquisite fullness of human pain, the Father fully suffered with Him. The Father and the Son were One; and the Son was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15, King James Version). That is, He would not give in to the tremendous urge to "curse God and die" as Job's wife urged him to do. On His cross, Christ struggled through the prayer of Psalm 22, and ended up choosing to believe that although absolutely everything told Him that God had forsaken Him, and suppose He has, He will not forsake His faith in the Father!
Before you pray for deliverance from the pain itself, pray for fellowship with Christ in His sufferings (cf. Phil. 3:10). Yes, climb up on that cross and be close to Him.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 4, 2002.
Copyright © 2020 by "Dial Daily Bread."
