Focal Passage: Isaiah 53:2-12
As a pastor, there are times when people come to you for counseling regarding problems and situations you have never faced personally. What do you say to the parent who has lost a child when you have three healthy kids at home?
What do you say to the wife whose husband has abandoned her for another woman when your spouse has always been faithful?
Those conversations are hard and require much wisdom from scripture. Often, I can sympathize with others but struggle to enter their suffering experientially.
Some find this problematic and refuse to be comforted. “How can you help me if you don’t understand?”
One great comfort for the believer in pain is that God has entered our suffering experientially in Jesus. Christ chose to suffer emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, just like us, not only on the cross but throughout His earthly life and ministry in order that we might be saved.
Hebrews 2 teaches that His suffering was appropriate because by His becoming like us, we become like Him. Friend, in your trials and temptations, look to Jesus who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. He has walked where you are walking and as a result, He guarantees that He has prepared something better for you in eternity. He has not promised to remove the trial, but He has promised to walk with you through it.