Grief and Pain - Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

“Suffering cannot adequately be dealt with by pretending that it does not exist. It will do no good to try to minimize it or to ‘talk’ it out of existence. It does exist and it does hurt. Nor will it do any good to search for a sudden cure for its pain as if one, by swallowing a miracle pill of modern pharmacology, could remove all at once the heavy weight it imposes.

The most comforting news Scripture has for the sufferer is that where pain, grief, and hurt are, there is God. Instead of a panacea, our Lord offers His presence. One of the greatest promises in the Bible, which speaks to all our fears, is bound up in the very name of our Lord—Immanuel: ‘God with us.’

Along with this assurance of the presence of our Lord comes perspective into the way pain and suffering can work to bring a better perception of our situation, times, and needs vis-à-vis the upward calling of God in our lives…

…Of course, there are alternatives to the biblically-sanctioned response, but will they accomplish the purposes of God? Should we have been hurt and suffered so much to emerge with merely a socially acceptable solution? Lamentations would have us emerge with more than the temporal healing; why not learn simultaneously that ‘the Lord is my portion’ (Lam. 3:24).”

Walter C. Kaiser Jr.