Where is God now? When life hurts and is difficult, where is God?

from the old testament

• When God created us, we were like Him in perfect righteousness (Genesis 1:26–27). However, when we rebelled, we brought death and suffering into the world (Genesis 3:17–19). Life became painful and hard at that point, and we have suffered ever since. Life is painful and hard because of our rebellion against God.
• The Bible teaches that God is omnipresent, which means that He is everywhere (Psalm 139:8). This was comforting to David because it meant that even when things were at their darkest (Psalm 139:11), he knew that God was there and understood the situation perfectly (Psalm 139:12).
• God, Himself, states that He is near (Jeremiah 23:23–24).
• Though He is everywhere, we also read that God is particularly close to His people. Though God is everywhere, in Exodus 13:21–22, we see that He can also be present in a particular location. If God is everywhere and can stop our suffering, why doesn’t He?
• Though God does not delight in suffering, He uses it to for greater purposes like disciplining us and discipling us—as seen in the severe judgment poured out on Israel for their rebellion (Lamentations 4:8).
• God’s everlasting love for His people does not negate the suffering we face (Jeremiah 31:3).
• The writer of Psalm 119 praised God for affliction because he understood that God used it to teach him obedience (Psalm 119:67, 71).
• Not all suffering is the result of personal sin, as seen in the story of Job—a man God called “blameless and upright” (Job 1:8)—who lost his wealth (Job 1:2–3, 14–17) and children (Job 1:18–19), not because he sinned, but because God allowed Satan to test him (Job 1–2).
• Even in deep suffering, God is near—as David expresses in his lament, “My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'” (Psalm 42:3); yet he speaks truth to himself, saying, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him” (Psalm 42:5), choosing to remember God’s presence and love: “My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you” (Psalm 42:6), and declaring, “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me” (Psalm 42:8). God is with us, His steadfast love undeterred.
• Isaiah 53 prophetically details the suffering of the Servant, writing in the past tense as if it had already happened. He said that the Servant “was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3). He said that the Servant was “smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4), meaning that God, Himself, caused the Servant’s suffering. We also learn that the result of the Servant’s suffering was death (Isaiah 53:8). The Servant (Jesus) was the last person we would expect to suffer, yet God intended to bring Him great suffering. From this, we learn that the Servant was sent to suffer and die for the sins of sinners (Isaiah 53:5). This is why “it was the will of the LORD to crush him” (Isaiah 53:10). This is an example of God not just allowing suffering but causing it. And He did so because He had a greater purpose in mind than His Servant’s temporal comfort.

from the new testament

• There’s an interesting verse in Hebrews that talks about Jesus being prepared to die by suffering. Referring to Jesus, we read, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8–9). The Father prepared Jesus for His death by effectively increasing His suffering over time. In His humanity, Jesus needed to learn to obey in the big thing—dying on the cross—by first obeying through lesser degrees of suffering. “Being made perfect” doesn’t mean He was sinful and then became perfect, but that His suffering matured Him (“made perfect”) so that He could follow through with His mission of bringing salvation to the world.
• Peter taught that while some suffering comes from our own sin and is deserved, believers are called to endure righteous suffering as Christ did—“when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God… Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example” (1 Peter 2:20–21); just as Jesus “committed no sin” and did not retaliate but “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:22–23), we, too, are called to trust God fully in the midst of unjust suffering.
• While we don’t know everything God is doing, James gives one reason why God brings suffering: it teaches us to trust the Father by maturing (being perfected) our faith and character (James 1:2–4).
• The author of Hebrews teaches that God loves His children—Christians—so much, that He disciplines them when they sin (Hebrews 12:2–6). Just as fathers discipline their children when they are disobedient, so the Father’s discipline is evidence of true salvation (Hebrews 12:7–10). God’s aim in disciplining us is not a pleasant life in the short-term but a long-term righteous life (Hebrews 12:11).
• Jesus, fully God and omnipresent, promised His continual presence to His followers—not that life would be free from pain, but that in every trial and moment of suffering, He would be with them, as He assured the disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). God is with us at all times, even in suffering.
• God is not just with us in suffering, but He sympathizes with us and shows us the way through difficulties, since He has felt all kinds of hurt, difficulties, and temptations yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:14–15). He feels, being able to relate to sorrows, comforting us in the midst of them.

implications for today

God is everywhere and sees everything—this includes painful life events. However, this does not mean that God doesn’t care. Rather, God has a purpose for pain in this life, desiring us to let go of this world and cling to Jesus.

For an unbeliever, difficulty in this life is a good thing because it reminds him or her that this life is not going to last forever. If someone is entirely wrapped up in this world, then suffering is God’s great kindness shaking them so that they see their sinfulness and repent.

Believers also suffer. Indeed, just like Jesus suffered, we are also expected to suffer. While some falsely teach that God desires us to have a good life now, God wants His children to live righteously and will bring discipline when we don’t. This is Him being a good Father. However, even when we strive to live as righteously as we can, God may cause us to suffer to help us become even more like Christ and to prepare us for eternity with Him. While it doesn’t always feel like it, we know that for believers, God is working out everything for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

Knowing that God is everywhere and yet allows suffering is actually a comfort. We know that our suffering is not pointless, even if we can’t see the reason. We also know that if our suffering is caused by someone else’s sin, He will bring judgment against the one who hurt us. Finally, we also know that Jesus, in His humanity, knows exactly what pain, loss, and sorrow feels like. He stands next to the Father, interceding on our behalf to help us go through life’s difficulties in a way that glorifies God.