pain and suffering
Pain, suffering, devastation. You don’t need to be a licensed counselor to recognize that there many people in this world that are in physical, emotional, and mental distress. You don’t need to be an expert on world events to know that there are millions of people world wide who are suffering from cancer, aids, depression, war, abuse, etc. The cries of the suffering can be heard from every corner of the world. Maybe you are one of the people who are crying out, maybe not physically, maybe you are not literally screaming out loud, but on the inside you are screaming to be heard. On the inside you are broken and hurting. No one seems to understand what you are going through. Your friends are unwilling to or can not understand all the anguish you are feeling. Your parents may not understand you or maybe they are the cause of your pain. Maybe they yell at you or curse you out or are too busy to spend any time with you. School or work can drag you down. You feel as if you go to work or go to school for nothing. Sure you go to work to survive or you go to school so you can go to college and make something out of your life, but still there is this emptiness that is constantly nagging at you.
You might feel powerless to help a friend who is sick, being abused, or throwing their life away. You watch the news and are sickened by all the pain and violence in the world that you cry out, “God where are you?” Or maybe you don’t even call out to God anymore. Maybe you are convinced that there is no God. That there can not be a loving God who could permit such suffering. But I want you to know that God is there. Maybe you can’t feel him, Maybe you’ve been screaming so loudly (inside) and for so long that you can’t hear His still small voice calling out to you. Maybe you felt his presence at one time, but He seems to have left you, to have abandoned you. But even if you feel like that, God is still by your side, God is still with you. I know those may seem like empty, hallow words. But I’ve been there. I may not have gone through your exact situation but I have been through moments where I could barely get up in the morning. I have gone through moments where I wondered if anybody cared whether I lived or died. I have gone through moments where I have felt completely shut off from God’s love. And I have even doubted whether or not God existed. But remember feelings are not always accurate. I know you’ve all had those moments where you’ve felt you did horrible or great on a test only to get the test back and find that you did the exact opposite of how you felt. Likewise, sometimes we feel completely abandoned only to find that is not the case.
The Bible talks about Mary and Martha who lost their brother Lazarus. They had asked Jesus to come and heal him, but when Jesus arrives he arrives seemingly too late. Martha and Mary, at different times tell Jesus, “Lord if only you had been here my brother would not have died.” How many times do we tell God, “God if only you had been there my friend wouldn’t have died. If only you had been there this never would have happened.” But Jesus performs a miracle right in front of the eyes of Mary and Martha. He tells Lazarus to come out of the tomb! And Lazarus does. Can you imagine the shock and happiness Mary and Martha must have felt?
Now I am not saying that God is going to perform a supernatural miracle in your life, he may not heal you from an illness, he probably won’t resurrect someone you loved back from the dead. But that’s because God cares more about giving you inner healing. Jesus resurrected Lazarus as a fulfillment of prophecy so that when it was His turn to be resurrected that his disciples and others would remember all the miracles that He had done. And God wants to heal your heart so that you can know and understand that He is the Son of God and he cares for you. Trust me, I’m not trying to shove my beliefs down anybody’s throat, but I do want you all to know that there is Someone out there who cares and loves you and is waiting for you to turn to Him.
You might feel powerless to help a friend who is sick, being abused, or throwing their life away. You watch the news and are sickened by all the pain and violence in the world that you cry out, “God where are you?” Or maybe you don’t even call out to God anymore. Maybe you are convinced that there is no God. That there can not be a loving God who could permit such suffering. But I want you to know that God is there. Maybe you can’t feel him, Maybe you’ve been screaming so loudly (inside) and for so long that you can’t hear His still small voice calling out to you. Maybe you felt his presence at one time, but He seems to have left you, to have abandoned you. But even if you feel like that, God is still by your side, God is still with you. I know those may seem like empty, hallow words. But I’ve been there. I may not have gone through your exact situation but I have been through moments where I could barely get up in the morning. I have gone through moments where I wondered if anybody cared whether I lived or died. I have gone through moments where I have felt completely shut off from God’s love. And I have even doubted whether or not God existed. But remember feelings are not always accurate. I know you’ve all had those moments where you’ve felt you did horrible or great on a test only to get the test back and find that you did the exact opposite of how you felt. Likewise, sometimes we feel completely abandoned only to find that is not the case.
The Bible talks about Mary and Martha who lost their brother Lazarus. They had asked Jesus to come and heal him, but when Jesus arrives he arrives seemingly too late. Martha and Mary, at different times tell Jesus, “Lord if only you had been here my brother would not have died.” How many times do we tell God, “God if only you had been there my friend wouldn’t have died. If only you had been there this never would have happened.” But Jesus performs a miracle right in front of the eyes of Mary and Martha. He tells Lazarus to come out of the tomb! And Lazarus does. Can you imagine the shock and happiness Mary and Martha must have felt?
Now I am not saying that God is going to perform a supernatural miracle in your life, he may not heal you from an illness, he probably won’t resurrect someone you loved back from the dead. But that’s because God cares more about giving you inner healing. Jesus resurrected Lazarus as a fulfillment of prophecy so that when it was His turn to be resurrected that his disciples and others would remember all the miracles that He had done. And God wants to heal your heart so that you can know and understand that He is the Son of God and he cares for you. Trust me, I’m not trying to shove my beliefs down anybody’s throat, but I do want you all to know that there is Someone out there who cares and loves you and is waiting for you to turn to Him.