Dear God, So Many People Are Hurting

The God Who cares.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Scrolling through Facebook the last few days has been a painful reminder that many people are hurting right now.

• A family mourns the tragic loss of a grandmother and child in a car wreck.

• A school shooting near Nashville, TN, where several children and adults were murdered.

• A family and police department mourns the death of a young police officer shot in Huntsville, AL.

• Families and communities grieve the death of loved ones killed in recent storms across the Mid-South and Southern United States.

And then you have all the people who live each day with grief and pain from the death of their husband or wife.

If we will slow down our lives long enough to look around, we will see a whole host of people around us who are hurting. Thankfully, God is not unaware or unconcerned about those who are hurting.

Jesus Knows What it Means to Hurt.

An Old Testament prophecy about Jesus referred to Him as “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He is the One who “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).

Jesus - the Word (John 1:1) - came to this earth and lived among us, as one of us (John 1:14). The Son of God didn’t just pick up a textbook and learn about us - He became us. Though He never sinned (1 Peter 2:22-24), He experienced life on this earth.

That includes grief, sickness, pain, and suffering.

He knows by experience what it is to be tempted to sin (Matthew 4:1-11), to grieve the death of someone you love (John 11:35), to be troubled by the betrayal of a close friend (John 13:21), and to suffer (John 19).

As the sinless sacrifice in our place, He is now the living High Priest at the “throne of grace” who “sympathizes with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:14-16). Jesus is touched with the feeling of what you are facing.

God is Going to Eliminate Hurting.

When Adam and Eve ignored God’s warning and disobeyed Him, they opened the door to the consequences of sin to enter this world (Genesis 3:16-19). And people have been facing sorrow, pain, suffering, and death ever since.

But Jesus Christ came to give us life and to destroy death. He did this by His resurrection from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20-26).

And when this life is over, and this earth is no more - God has promised to eliminate our hurting forever.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

His people - His church - Christians - look forward to God keeping this promise.

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Look at the people around you, and see how much they are hurting.

Maybe you don’t have to look that far. Maybe all you had to do to know how much grief, pain, and suffering are in this world was to wake up this morning. Perhaps your life feels consumed by hurting.

Jesus knows, and He cares. In Him, there is eternal life (1 John 5:13) without all those things we experience on this earth in this life.

Don’t you long for a better home?

A home where family members never die in car accidents. A home where another murderer’s bullet never kills children. A home where another police officer will never be killed. A home where storms never destroy lives and communities. A home where none of us will ever experience pain, suffering, death, or sorrow again.

There is a “better” home (Hebrews 11:16).

This home is open to all who will follow Jesus there (John 14:6). This home is open to all who will turn from their sin and be immersed into the death of Jesus (Romans 6:3-4; Acts 2:38). This home is open to those who live a new life, following after the example of the Lord (Romans 6:5-7).

By the grace of God, He offers something better to us.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-9)