What Is God Doing When Life Is Difficult?
Suffering exists because the world is broken. God cares about that suffering. God is powerful enough to end that suffering. But what is an all-powerful and all-caring God doing while that suffering is still occurring? Have you ever asked that question or wrestled with that reality as you’ve walked through difficult times in your own life?
I think most people in our church would agree that God is powerful. I think they would also agree that God cares. Yet I think many might struggle with the idea of suffering in their lives because of these truths. If God is powerful enough to end suffering, does he not care to end it? Or if God cares about the suffering, is he not powerful enough to end it?
We see this tension play out in Luke 8:22-56. We encounter Jesus as incredibly powerful but also seemingly lacking urgency in enacting that power. In those verses alone, we read of Jesus calming a storm, casting out demons, healing a 12-year-old disease, and raising someone from the dead. However, we also read of Jesus sleeping on the boat, being crowded by loads of people, and not being quick to get to the dead person.
Are you going through difficult circumstances right now where God seems uncaring, powerless, or even absent? Are you currently in a storm so great that it induces fear? Are you facing an opponent in your life so strong that he or she seems uncontrollable? Are you struggling with physical sickness for years on end with no answers? Are you facing the reality of someone dying earlier than expected?
God still easily overpowers raging storms, the evil one, long-standing diseases, and death because he hasn’t lost his power over nature, demons, disease, and death. But what is God doing when he doesn’t quickly calm, remove, heal, and overcome the suffering in our lives? Is God sleeping and apathetic, too busy with bigger problems, or is he distracted by all the other issues on his plate?
God hasn’t abandoned you and won’t forsake you. In fact, God will always be present with his people. What a promise to cling to! However, God is not simply a casual observer or co-pilot in your suffering. He’s doing far more than watching or providing color commentary. Our all-powerful and all-caring God is working in and through you during the painful times. God is doing far more than we’ll ever know when life is difficult, but here are 8 foundational truths to remember about God’s work as you wait for Christ’s return to a painfully broken world.
8 Things God Is at Work Doing During Your Suffering
1. God is showing his sufficiency in the midst of your insufficiency.
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
Suffering reveals our weakness more than just about anything, yet God’s sufficient grace reveals his power during our weak moments. We can be content in all circumstances, even the awful ones, because our sufficiency is found in Christ, not ourselves. God is at work showing you how much you need him.
2. God is giving meaning to your difficult circumstances.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)
Don’t give up and lose heart, because your suffering is not meaningless. God is at work preparing you for an incomparable glory that is heavy and forever.
3. God is making the life of Jesus visible in your life.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)
Our bodies are death-of-Jesus-carriers during affliction. Because of that, we get to show the life of Jesus to the world around us when those afflictions don’t crush us, drive us to despair, cause us to be forsaken, or destroy us. God is at work manifesting his life through us while we suffer in the body.
4. God is drawing you near to help you experience the life of Christ.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, (Philippians 3:8-10)
There aren’t many things that draw us closer to Jesus than suffering. In fact, the purpose of suffering the loss of all things in this life is to know him and the power of his resurrection. God is at work pulling you in to increase your relational intimacy with him during hard times. God is also allowing you to experience suffering like Christ. Now, that’s not the part of Christ we want to experience, but it helps us understand the gravity of his death and resurrection. God is at work drawing you near to him in order to shape you into the image of Christ through affliction.
5. God is maturing you.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)
Trials that test your faith are leading you to perfection and completion. God is at work maturing you into a person of steadfastness and contentment as you walk through those trials.
6. God is producing in you a hope that doesn’t disappoint.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)
The hope that God is producing in you during suffering isn’t just a surface-level hope. It’s a satisfying hope. It’s a hope that will never disappoint, unlike the incredibly inferior and depressing hope of idols like comfort and control. God is at work bringing about a fulfilling hope in you during tough times.
7. God is testing the genuineness of your faith for his glory.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Trials in this life will bring great grief, but there’s a refining purpose for you and supreme purpose for God during those times. God is at work glorifying himself by testing how authentic your faith is during suffering.
8. God is continuing to spread the gospel to all nations.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9-14)
Mission doesn’t cease during painful times. In fact, in the midst of tribulation, being hated, and increased lawlessness, God is going to make the gospel known to all nations during the suffering of the last days. God is at work on his worldwide mission even while his children suffer.
Next time you find yourself in the midst of painful suffering and it feels like God is sleeping, too busy with the world’s “bigger” problems, doesn’t care, or isn’t powerful enough to remove the pain, remember that God is not only with you, but he’s still at work in and through you. The apostle Paul may have said it best when he said, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). God hasn’t stopped being powerful. God hasn’t ceased caring. He isn’t unaware. He isn’t avoiding the problem. He isn’t distracted. He isn’t too busy. God is working in his timing, in his ways, and for his glory in the midst of your suffering.