Friday, September 15, 2006

What is God thinking?

Recently, life has taken some twists and turns that have placed several of my friends and acquaintances in extreme circumstances and deep trials. As I have walked alongside of them during these times I have tried to encourage them that their suffering has not gone unnoticed and indeed that God grieves along with them. He weeps even as they weep. If we, being human, are touched by the suffering of others, how much more our Heavenly Father is touched by their suffering.
After all, Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus and the grief of his sisters. "Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, 'See how He loved him.'" (John 11:33-36) Since Jesus is God with skin on - "who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person" (Heb 1:3)-and since we were created in the image of God "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Gen 1:27) -it seems reasonable that God feels.
I recently came across the following quote:
"Jesus lived for one purpose alone: to do the will of His Father. Yet He still felt.
Jesus is the precise image of His Father, who also feels. God is holy and righteous. Our salvation necessitates a cross; our poor decisions necessitate chastisement. The refusal of the lost to believe necessitates judgment. But God still feels. Beloved, God still feels."1

The next time you are wondering what God is thinking about your trials, your abuse, your suffering - remember His heart feels deeply.
What a great God we have that He sees all the evil and suffering in the world at once, and yet is not consumed.
Thank you Jesus for stretching our finite minds a little more.

Diane
1 Beth Moore, Beloved Disciple: The Life and Ministry of John, LifeWay Press, Nashville, TN, 2002

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