I’m at the beach with my family right now and it is all I could ask for in a relaxing vacation (especially since I’m about to leave all comforts of America for a year). I am with my family, who I love AND actually really like to hang out with, in a beautiful beachfront house. At the moment, I’m sitting in the sun with a strawberry daiquiri (yes, it’s alcoholic).
Of course I’m sitting out here in luxury reading about suffering. But, people who know me wouldn’t be surprised. I feel lost and empty when I’m not digging into who God is and what He wants for my life.
One of my college friends recently said something to me that was very inspiring, especially coming from an atheist:
….But as you know, I don't believe. “
It’s so interesting that someone looking into Christianity from the outside would say something like that – If you truly believe Jesus is who he says He is, how could you not devote your life to him?
But, one of the things stopping him from believing is the fact of suffering in the world. That’s a tough one. And it’s not a question that I think has an answer, at least not on this side of heaven. In the book of Job, Job is faced with extreme suffering and wonders what God is thinking letting him suffer so harshly, since he is a righteous man. But God pretty much says, “Where were you when I created the universe? Where were you when I told the sea how far it could come?” (Job 38).
God says – “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).
So even though I don’t have the answers, I believe God does, and my hope is found in that. Even if we don’t know exactly why suffering exists, I believe we find closeness with God through our suffering. We can know more of God’s character as he walks beside us through our suffering, and if my suffering brings me closer to Him, I hope to find joy in that.
I find so much comfort in Jesus’ words, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
