I sat with a girlfriend as she recalled her story. It was story filled with sadness, a life that had known much abuse and pain. All I could hear throughout was a deep sense of aloneness. A family that fell apart, foster homes one after the other, failed relationships, a job that used her and left her feeling empty and abused. I sadly saw her, a young girl, without the security and love I have known, doing all she could to survive. There was no one to run home to, no one to count on, and no place of safety or belonging. I didn’t know what to say. I asked her if I could pray with her and did the only thing I knew how to do – I recounted the truths of God – those truths that spoke of Him being with her, alongside, always there, loved. We lifted our heads at the end of the prayer and I witnessed something beautiful – from years of feeling soul-alone, her face lit up as she reflected this truth. There amongst the aloneness she carried, was a thread of light, seen and felt by her for the first time. She said with wonder, “you mean I was never alone?”
As I have walked alongside my girlfriends, as I have tried to make sense of some of the confusion in my own head, as I have grieved the tragedy here in my own country this past week, God has been gently but surely, making clearer the answer to, “where are you God when bad stuff happens in our world?” It has been a question that has troubled me my entire life. I’ve known the scriptures, but not understood God. I have accused Him. Been confused with Him. Troubled by what I thought was inconsistency in His character.
I recently heard the term, the suffering Christ, “Isaiah refers to [Jesus] as the suffering servant. The early church developed a theology from that which referred to Jesus as the suffering Christ, that he is not distant or far from them, but just like the cross proved, he was willing
In the book of Hosea, it says, “I will betroth you in compassion” Hosea 2:19. Through earlier study, I had learned that betrothal meant much more than a promise, or a contract. It was a binding of one person to another: a tying together of the heart, the soul and the body. It was a spiritual, emotional, and physical encircling of God’s life with humanity, with an invisible cord, an irrevocable tie of love and commitment. When God saw the sorrows of His people in Hosea’s day it moved Him so deeply, that within a strong passionate desire stirred and moved Him to step down into their lives, to be present and alongside. Compassion moved Him to tie Himself with them in their suffering.
Scripture is filled with verses that tell us of the compassion of God –
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” Exodus 34:6. “Our God is full of compassion” James 5:11. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles” 2 Corinthians 1:3.
God has been showing me He suffers: the pain we feel, He feels. And so Jesus came, the suffering Christ. Not only to suffer for the sin and evil of this world but to suffer alongside as we suffer. Jesus came, tying Himself to us, and has remained alongside, identifying with us in all our humanness.
He came to serve us in our suffering, “taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness…” Philippians 2:6-8. He was obedient to the suffering He faced, you could say, bearing the pain and shame of a cross to show us just how willing He was to be alongside – and to do what was necessary to alleviate it.
In coming, He brought a message of hope that people in poverty of body and spirit needed to hear in their place of hopelessness, Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor”
He came to tend the hearts of the broken, bandaging them with ties of compassionate love, “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”
He came with keys to unlock the physical, emotional, and spiritual prisons we find ourselves in, “to proclaim freedom for the captives”
He came opening the eyes of those blinded by sorrow and sadness, “and release from darkness for the prisoners” (as He did for my girlfriend).
He came declaring the favour of God on humanity: humanity who has thought through the ages that He had abandoned them to suffering and injustice, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.”
And He came to comfort. He sees their tears, and walks alongside as they suffer and mourn, “to comfort all who mourn.”
Jeremiah, called the lamenting prophet, wrote the Old Testament book of Lamentations and records there a poem. The word affliction means great distress, intense suffering, unbearable grief, hardship, trouble, sorrow, the burden of guilt. It is said that out of pain of the deepest kind, songs, poetry, and art emerges, and Jeremiah through the pain he suffered, writes from the experience of his heart, an acrostic poem – the A to Z of affliction. His words express the grief felt from the overwhelming affliction he suffered.
Each stanza of his poem starts with the next letter of the alphabet. We are unable to pick it up in English, it is lost in translation, but it would be like writing, A is for affliction, B is for burden, C is for calamity, D is for desperation, etc. Jeremiah was in a dark place, he felt abandoned by God, and that the hand of God was against him. He was weary and had lost the appetite for life, like a corpse barely alive. He was unable to escape his troubles, feeling like his prayers were not heard, and his heart a target where arrow after
Jeremiah bore the burden of a rebellious Israel, and, the burden of communicating God’s heart to them. He spoke to his people during the time when Jerusalem was destroyed and the ruin and exile that followed. Israel opposed what they heard, and treated him cruelly. It was a painful task, that he personally felt and experienced as one who both loved God, and loved his people.
There is a musical term, called a burden, which is the drone of the groaning of an instrument or voice. It is similar to that noise we make when something is just too hard to bear – and from a heavy, burdened heart, Jeremiah wrote down his lamentation: the A-Z of affliction.
The Old Testament tells us that God is called Elohim Shamah Shava: The God who hears our cries, or the God who hears our groanings. It is this God who said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” Exodus 3:7.
It is interesting, that at the same time as Jeremiah, was another prophet, Isaiah, and to
God was seeking to comfort His people with the words, “Jesus is coming! I am sending Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Jesus is your comfort. Jesus will heal. Jesus will walk with you. Jesus will carry your burden. Jesus will deal with your sin and hurt. Jesus will love you. Jesus will speak words of truth and grace and mercy. Jesus will be with you.” Jesus was God’s gift of compassion and comfort to us in human form –
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them” Matthew 9:36. “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them” Matthew 14:14. “Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people…” Matthew 15:32.
Jesus heals, He teaches, He comforts, He loves, He welcomes. God said, “Be comforted, my people, Jesus is coming…” and when Jesus came, He Himself said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28. He would walk alongside them, suffering as they suffer, and would carry their load. The compassionate God, the One who hears our cry and is deeply moved by our struggles, sends Jesus.
“God, often I feel like Jeremiah where it seems like Your hand is heavy on me. I can feel abandoned by You. I can feel that You are not listening to my desperate cries for help. As with Jeremiah, often it seems like, “All that I had hoped on from the LORD is gone” Lamentations 3:18. Jeremiah was hoping that You would change the situation. He’d been hoping that things would get better. He’d been desperate to see something of You in his life. But he was so downcast and had lost all hope of anything from You. His feelings were screaming to him that You did not care, that You had abandoned him. It seems that he struggled with You as I have struggled with You. That his knowledge of You and Your love was inconsistent with what he saw happening around him.”
Rather than continuing to listen to his emotions, this lamenting poet and prophet, does something to take note of. He makes himself focus on the truth he knows, “Yet this I call to mind: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him…” Lamentations 3:22. Jeremiah recognized that when his emotions and situation were overwhelming and consuming, he needed to focus on the truth that God’s compassion never fails. He is faithful to His promise. He would be compassionate because He had bound Himself to them.
Sometimes the cleverness of God’s written word blows me away: in Hebrews, Paul tells us to “fix our eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…so that we do not grow weary and give up” Hebrews 12:1-5. Where Jeremiah gave us the A-Z of affliction, Paul talks about us “fixing our eyes on Jesus”, the A-Z of our faith. What truth do we know about Jesus? We are to fix our eyes on the one who is the Author of Love and the Finisher of Love. The A-Z of compassion.
A I am Always faithful to you
“The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness” Lamentations 3:22;23
B My comforting presence is Behind and Before you
“You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head” Psalm 139:5
C I am your Constant in uncertain times
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” Hebrews 13:8
D I Deliver you from trouble
“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them, he delivers them from all their troubles” Psalm 34:17
E I am your Ever-Present help
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” Psalm 46:1
F I am For you
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31
G I am the God who comforts you
“You are my comforter in sorrow” Jeremiah 8:18
H I Hear your cries
“In my distress, I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears” Psalm 18:6
I My grace to you is Incomparable to any other
“…the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 2:7
J I am Jesus, the Lover of your soul
“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully” Ephesians 3:19
K I am Kind to you
“He has showered his kindness on us” Ephesians 1:8
L I Love you with an unfailing love
“The Lord is merciful and compassionate…and filled with unfailing love” Psalm 145:8
M My Mercies are new every morning
“His mercies never cease. They begin afresh each morning” Lamentations 3:22-23
N I will Never abandon you
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will…neither fail or abandon you” Deuteronomy 31:8
O I Oversee your life
“…the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” 1 Peter 2:25
P I will keep the Promises I make to you
“you are faithful to all your promises” Psalm 71:22
Q I will Quiet your soul
“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take delight in you, he will quiet you with his love” Zephaniah 3:17
R I will give you Rest
“Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28
S I am your Strength
“I love you, Lord; you are my strength” Psalm 18:1
T I am Trustworthy
“The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does” Psalm 145:13
U I Understand you
“For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you” Proverbs 24:12
V I know the Very intimate parts about you, everything, and love you
“O LORD, you know everything about me…how precious are your thoughts about me”. Psalm 139:1,17
W I Watch over you
“He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber” Psalm 121:3
X My love for you is eXtravagant
“His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us” Ephesians 5:1
Y I am Your God
“So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will, I will strengthen you and help you” Isaiah 41:10
Z I am the A-Z of your faith
“God who began the good work within us, will continue His work until it is finished” Philippians 1:6
Time and time again I have heard the heart pain of my friends, I have felt the pain of my own struggles, I have seen the pain of evil and suffering in my world. I believe in trying to make sense of it all, I have looked to blame someone or something and have placed my accusation on God, viewing His Sovereignty as cruelty, instead of placing blame in its rightful place – on the evil one. I am being moved from the place of accusing and blaming God, to focusing on the truth of who He is, the suffering Christ: alongside, grieving as I grieve, hurting as I hurt, stepping into the mess of my life, bringing comfort and healing to the pain – and truly seeing perhaps for the first time as my girlfriend saw, “you mean I have never been alone?” He has been there, always.
I’d love my girlfriends to know that from beginning to end, from their conception in Love to their completion in Love, from the A to Z of their lives, through every moment, where their cry has been, “alone, abandoned, forsaken”, that they would see Jesus, the compassionate One, who has bound Himself to their lives, walking alongside, hurting as they hurt, yet equally, because He is God, He with purpose is restoring, redeeming, and returning them.
Continued in next week’s Blog…