How can a loving God let this happen to me? Including Job and myself, I don’t know one person who’s experienced deep suffering and hasn’t asked this question in moments of pain and despair. As a mature believer, Job lamented to God, “I loathe my life…do not condemn me…I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction…why did You bring me out of the womb?” (Job 10:1-2, 15, 18 ESV).
In our cries, perhaps the enemy digs even further…is God loving? How could He be, if I’m a believer in Christ and yet suffering?
As Job laments, he interrupts his suffering by gasping a glimmer of hope in what he knows is true, fighting the lie that our loving God is condemning us with trials.
You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit (Job 10:12 ESV).
Sister in Christ, let’s battle these lies with truth as Job did, found in God’s Word to us, given to us in His love for us.
Remembering God’s love, proven and shown to me in my Savior Jesus Christ
God is love (1 Jn. 4:8 ESV).
God so loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (Jn. 3:16-17 CSB).
But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath (Rom. 5:8-9 CSB).
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 Jn. 4:9 CSB) so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26 CSB).
Oh, hearken now to the voice of Jesus;
Why will you longer roam:
There’s peace and rest on His loving breast,
And a glad heav’nly home.
(“Wonderful Love of Jesus,” Littlewood, W. E., 1857)
In the midst of suffering, nothing at all can separate me from God’s love
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Rom. 8:36 ESV)
Nothing at all. Not illness, depression, chronic pain, anxiety, loss, trauma, doubt, confusion, loneliness, grief. Not pressures and stress, barriers or obstacles, feeling overwhelmed by things closing in. Not financial problems, poverty, attacks, crime, war, wounding, abuse, peril. Not Satan and the powers of demonic evil. Not anything we’re enduring now or will endure in the future. Not our own sin. Not death.
Nothing at all.
There is no love like the love of Jesus,
Never to fail or fall,
Till into the fold of the peace of God,
He has gathered us all.
In the midst of suffering, trusting God’s love is His victorious conquering work!
How are we “more than conquerors” as we suffer these hard-normal things of this fallen world? Through our powerful God who loved us! Trusting His love to us in Christ as He turns us to Him…is a victory He gives us in the midst of suffering, a surpassing victory in this war!
Let us…put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him (1 Thess. 5:8-9 CSB).
It’s all through Jesus, because of Jesus, by the person and work of Jesus for us! We are together with Jesus and in Jesus!
God…because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! (Eph. 2:4-5 CSB, emphasis added)
There is no heart like the heart of Jesus,
Filled with a tender love;
No throb of woe that our hearts can know,
But He feeds it above.
Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, Copyright © 2022
Singing to my loving God, because nothing at all can separate me from His love
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word (2 Thess. 2:16-17 ESV).
In the midst of our suffering, let’s trust in God’s comforting love by pray-singing of His love, to Him and to our souls. I’m praying for our hearts as we do because singing powerfully connects our minds, soul, and emotions. So, let’s turn to our loving triune God!
Jesus’ love, precious love,
Boundless and pure and free!
Oh, turn to that love, weary, wandering soul,
Jesus pleadeth for thee.
This week’s playlist gift focuses us on remembering God’s love shown to us in Jesus and expressing our love to Him. In the moments when the enemy tries to make us feel we’re separated from God’s love, let’s sing truth and refute the lies, until it gets into our emotions! Let’s sing the Scriptures in this week’s “praise interruption” as we seek His help to be “more than conquerors” in the midst of our suffering!
Here are links for the singing and other resources to help with this battle, singing Christ’s hope into suffering:
For weekly prayer and playlist of Scriptural songs to sing, sign up here:
To hear Scripture devotional with calming hymn playing, click here for YouTube podcast.
Devotional Bible study prayer journals, available on Amazon. Click titles for details.
“Near to God: A Devotional Bible Study of God’s Character in Our Suffering”
2 Comments
K Brooke · January 31, 2023 at 9:53 am
Another wonderful account of the all-surpassing might of God’s love. Christ is the One who overcomes on our behalf. Thank you for these precious reminders.
Lauri Hogle · January 31, 2023 at 3:19 pm
Dear sister in Christ, amen! Your words speak into our hurting hearts. Thank you for the encouragement as we walk alongside one another, until we arrive home to our beloved and all-powerful Savior and Lord! Glory to God!!
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