Seeing Through Suffering and Pain

Painful experiences are part of life.  During the past few months, I have been close to people as they have gone through some of the most traumatizing events that a human being can face.  In each case, these people have received much comfort and help from those who love them.  But the question arises, “Why would God allow this tragedy?”  In the midst of suffering and pain, the natural question is, “Why?”  If God is in control, why would He allow those He loves to hurt so much?

When you are hurting, that pain is your reality. It’s what you feel.  The suffering and what is causing it is foremost on your mind.  It is hard to think about anything else.  A hurting person needs to be able to see beyond the suffering and pain.  

The BIble contains the story of a man who experienced extreme pain and suffering.  It was so awful he said he wished he had not been born.  He was a believer in God, committed to trusting God even through the hardest of times, but he wrestled with God’s purpose in his suffering and pain.  The man’s name is Job, and his story is in the book of the Bible that bears his name.  Here is his testimony at the end of his ordeal:  “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (Job 42:5).  Job learned to see through his suffering and pain.

I will be preaching at Calvary Baptist Church on Seeing Through Suffering and Pain starting Sunday, September 1.  The truth I will be presenting has potential to help many people.  These messages will be presented and distributed in the following venues:

• Sunday Mornings during our Lord’s Day Gatherings at 10:30 am, September 1 – November 3
• Sunday Morning at Calvary, recorded music and message broadcast on WGTK FM94.5 at 8:00 am Sunday mornings.  Also live-streamed at www.calvarysimpsonville.org/radio.  (Messages broadcast 1-2 weeks after originally preached)
• Available for download at www.calvarysimpsonville.org/sermons

Whoever you are, whatever your pain, I invite you to learn how to change your focus from how you feel and what is causing your suffering to something outside of yourself and your circumstances.  Invite someone to come or listen with you.  People in pain desperately try to find relief.  When time doesn’t heal, the drugs wear off, and the advice of well-meaning friends is insufficient, you need something real, something transformational.  You need to be able to see.  Job did. You can. Come see.