Is God With You In Your Suffering?

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

Have you ever felt alone in your suffering? Maybe your heart was broken. Maybe you lost a child. Maybe you were betrayed. Regardless of the source of the pain, have you ever felt alone in it?

This is the horror of being forsaken, left to squirm in your pain by yourself. It is worse than the pain itself, and even followers of Jesus can feel this way at times.

But the question is this: is God with you? Is the feeling of forsakenness an unfortunate reality to cope with or a lie to be dismantled? Are you really alone?

The answer to this question is determinant to how you will suffer. We will all suffer, but we will not all suffer the same. I know people who are crushed by hardship. I also know people who thrive in hardship. They maintain a posture of worship and gratitude even when burdened with immense pain. So what’s the differentiating factor here?

To answer the question, we must head to the cross of Christ. We must consider who Jesus is, especially in stark contrast to the idols of our time and the competing false gods of other religions. He is not a god among gods, but God among gods. Jesus stands alone, especially when it comes to this issue of suffering. While other so-called gods (be they money, power, or a god with a proper name) are indifferent to suffering, the God of the Bible is uniquely aware and involved. 

We must understand two things: Jesus suffers for His people, and Jesus suffers with His people. 

Jesus suffers for His people. That’s what the cross is about. It was not just a demonstration of divine sacrifice, some penultimate finale of power and holiness to secure His legacy. The cross wasn’t just nice, nor amazing — the cross was for you. It was substitutionary sacrifice. The cross of Christ is the Son of God suffering for — instead of — the people of God.

Jesus suffers with His people. He is not removed, arms folded, a bystander. No, He participates in what you have going on. He says something astounding in Matthew 25. He is talking about the coming judgment, that people will give an account for how they lived. And then Jesus talks about those who will be rewarded for giving Him food when He was hungry, water when He was thirsty, hospitality when He was homeless, clothes when He was naked, company when He was sick, and a visit when He was in prison. Then Jesus says those being rewarded will be confused. “Lord, we didn’t do any of those things to you.” That’s when Jesus says it: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-40). 

Here Jesus lays out the principle of His with-ness. In great compassion, and in a very real sense by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, Jesus is with His flock. Compassion means to “suffer with”. As happens to His people, so happens to Christ. As those united to Christ by faith, we can rest assured our pain does not merely terminate on us, but radiates to Him as well. 

He feels your pain.

The reality for Christ-followers is this: you are never alone. As the book of Hebrews says (4:14-16), we have a High Priest who gets it. He can sympathize with us, He can suffer with us, because He Himself has suffered as a man. He has suffered as we have.

But there is one way Jesus has suffered which we will not experience. He was forsaken on the cross. He experienced the fullness of physical and emotional suffering, but what was worse was the spiritual suffering. Jesus suffered alone, forsaken, so He could bear the full weight of the penalty for sin. He had to truly absorb the wrath of God for the sin of humanity, which meant He had to experience aloneness in His torment. 

Because He experienced this on our behalf, we will never have to experience aloneness in our suffering. 

I don’t know what you’re going through, friend. But He does. He is not a Zeus-like deity, high and lifted up and removed from your experience on the ground. He is Immanuel, God with you. He got dirt on His feet. 

Some day we will not suffer. There will be no ibuprofen, urgent cares, or cemeteries in heaven. And that day is coming soon, the day when Jesus comes back. But for now, life includes hard times. Not always, but sometimes. And when they come, remember Jesus is with you. He’s nearer than your pain receptors.