When suffering comes, God doesn’t leave us to cope with it in our own strength. He is with us in our suffering just as he was with Peter, James, and John. You can be sure God is with you through all your ups and downs, good days and bad. There is no struggle that will ever drive him away from you. In his presence, you will find everything you need to persevere.
On November 7, 2018, a Marine Corps veteran dressed in black and armed with a .45 caliber handgun entered a popular hangout for college students and young adults. He opened fire, killing twelve before turning the gun on himself. The Borderline Bar and Grill was two miles from my house.
The next morning, I was interviewed on radio about the tragedy. While driving home, exhausted from the discussion, I saw smoke rising from the fields near my home. The Woolsey fire had started just a few hours after the Borderline shooting, eventually burning 95,000 acres, destroying 1,643 structures, killing three people, and causing the evacuation of more than 295,000—my family included.
One question was on the minds of many that week: Why would God allow all this pain, grief, and suffering? It’s a question we all wrestle with eventually.
Suffering is a part of reality that we generally try to avoid. However, I’ve learned three important things about embracing suffering that have completely changed how I relate to God and deepened my relationship with him.
First, God uses our suffering for the good of his people. Consider Joseph’s life. After being left for dead by his brothers, he was sold into slavery, falsely accused of having an affair with Potiphar’s wife, imprisoned, and forgotten. In the final analysis, though, when he looked back on his trials and saw what God had done through them, he said, “As for you [his brothers], you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).