Where Is God When It Hurts?

There are many things in life that cause us pain:          

Failing an exam

Breaking up with a boyfriend of girlfriend

The death of someone we love

Realising we can never obtain our dreams

Discovering that your husband or wife is having an affair

When these things happen we hurt! We have pain in our hearts, dreadful pain that causes us to ask questions like:

Why did this happen to me?

God why did you let this happen?

Does God really love me?

If God is good how can he let such terrible things happen?

Does God really exist?

In 2 Kings 4:8-37 we find the story of the Shunamite Woman. We don’t know her name, all we know about her is that she was rich, that she was generous, that she had no children and that her husband was very old.

This story begins when Elisha, the prophet of God was travelling through Israel. He came to the town of Shunam. While he was there the Shunamite woman asked him to have dinner at her house. After that everytime Elisha came to Shunam he stopped and ate at the home of the Shunamite woman.

One day the Woman said to her husband “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” 2Kings 4:9-10

Her husband agreed and the room was built.

Sometime after the room was finished Elisha came to visit again, and the Shunamite woman showed him his room. He was very happy and grateful!! Later that day while he was lying on the bed he sent his servant Gehazi to find the woman and he asked her “You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?” (vs 13) She replied that there was nothing she needed and she went back down stairs.

So Elisha asked his servant “What can we do for her?”

Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son and her husband is old.”

So Elisha sent for the woman again and he said to her (vs 16) “About this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.”

This was the woman's situation: Her husband was old, he would die soon and when he died everything he owned would go to his brother and she would be left with nothing. In fact she would also have to marry his brother. I'm guessing that she had really wanted a son but at some point had become resigned to her fate.  

Now here is a man, a prophet of God, telling her that in one years time she would have a baby boy of her very own.

The Woman said to Elisha “No, my lord … Don’t mislead your servant, O man of God!” (vs 16)

Nevertheless the woman became pregnant and one year later she had a son. Just like Elisha had told her.

It is interesting to notice that even though she did not have faith in Elisha's prediction it came true anyway.

The child grew up and followed his father around the farm, helping more and more as he got older. One day he was out in the field with the reapers and it was hot. His head began to ache. It got more and more painful. So his father told a servant to carry the boy to mother. He sat on his mothers knee until noon and then he died.

  

This is just about the worst pain a parent can have, to have your child die before you. Many people in this situation blame God and turn away from Him and refuse to have anything else to do with Him. What the Shunamite Woman did was extraordinary.

She refused to believe that the death of her child was Gods will. She went upstairs and laid the boy on the bed of the Prophet Elisha and she called her husband. “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

“Why?” her husband asked, and she replied “Everything is fine.” She did’nt tell him the boy had just died. It is as if she is refusing to believe that he was dead.

Elisha saw her coming in the distance, and he said to his servant Gehazi, “Run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?” (vs 26) and she replied “Everything is fine.”

Finally she reached the prophet Elisha and she fell to the ground and held onto his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me why.” (vs 27)

The woman finally cried out her pain, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?” (vs 28)

Notice that even though she was in immense pain she still turned to God first to take away her pain. Instead of running from God and blaming Him she goes to God and tells Him exactly what she thinks. “I didn’t ask for a Son, you gave him to me and then you took him away. WHY??? Why did you do this to me???”

And God did not fail her.

Elisha the prophet of God sent his servant to the house of the woman with instructions to lay his staff across the boys face. But this was not enough for the woman. She said to Elisha “I will not leave you!” So Elisha went with her to her house. He went into the upper room and He prayed, and God raised the child back to life.

Where was God in this story?

God was their all the time, even when the woman was most destressed God was there. He heard her pain and he gave her son back to her.

Does God Understand what we feel when we are in pain?

Yes He does.

In the record of Jesus’ death on the cross we find these words, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus is hanging on the cross, he is naked, he has been beaten several times so that his skin and muscles are torn up and running with blood. He has seen his friends betray and deny him and all the people who only a few days before had wanted to make Him king have shouted that he must die. And now He feels as if God has deserted Him. “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

Where is God? God is right there with Jesus but Jesus can’t feel Him.

However like the Shunamite woman Jesus refuses to doubt Gods goodness. Even though He feels like God has deserted Him he still clings to the promises that God has given in the Bible and the very last thing He says before He dies is, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

God understands our pain. He’s been there Himself. He’s experienced the worst pain a parent can have, the pain of seeing His own Son murdered.

And Jesus has experienced the pain of rejection by friends, betrayal by close friends, whatever pain you can think of, Jesus has experienced it.

When we hurt where is God? 

Just like the Shunamite woman, and just like Jesus, He’s right there with us, waiting for us to turn to Him. For us to tell him our feelings, for us to trust Him.

Like with Jesus and with the Shunamite Woman, when we put our trust in God, He works to turn our pain into a blessing. Because He has promised two things:

Hebrews 13:5

“… God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.’ ”

Romans 8:28

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Every single one of us has been called by God. He is calling us to come to Him and give Him our pain and our heartaches. To allow Him to be our God and our comforter. He promises that even when we don’t understand, our pain can work for our good – because ALL things work for good for those who love God. And He has promised to never leave us, even in the middle of our worst pain.

Jesus death worked for our good – because Jesus died we can go to heaven and be with God and Jesus for ever.

The Shunamite woman, how did her pain work for her good?

In 2 Kings chapter 8 we find this woman again.

God has told Elisha that there is going to be a famine in the land for seven years. So Elisha goes to the Woman and tells her, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever seems good to you, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.”

She obeys Elisha, packs up her family and they go to another country for seven years. At the end of this time she brings her family back to Israel. Things have changed. Someone else is living in her house. So she goes to the king to ask for her lands back.

Now it just happens that on that very day the King has called Elisha’s servant Gehazi and said to him, “Tell me about the all the great things Elisha has done.” So Gehazi is standing with the King telling him stories about how God has worked through Elisha. Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the Shunamite Woman’s dead son to life, the Shunamite Woman herself came up to the King to beg him to give back her house and land.

So Gehazi said to the King, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”

The king asked the woman about it, and she told him the whole story.

The King was so amazed that he assigned an official to her case and said to the official, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”

So the result of that terrible situation was that many years later God was able to use the woman's pain to show His goodness. The King heard how powerful God was, that He could bring dead people back to life and the Shunamite Woman got back her house and her land and all the profit the land had produced during the seven years she was away.

How does God use our pain to bless us?

I don’t know. Every case is different.

But I do know three things;

1. God is with me even when it hurts most and I think he has gone far away, because He has promised

Hebrews 13:5

“… God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.’ ”

2.      2. Everything that happens to me will be a blessing in someway because I love God and God has promised

Romans 8:28

“ … that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

3.      3. Even when I don’t understand I can tell God “God, this hurts, it hurts bad, I don’t understand but I will trust you.”

When we do this God works in our situations to mend our hearts to turn our situations around and to bring us blessings.

I know this is true from my own experience. Some of the pains in my life, I can see now that while they were hard God used them to bless and protect me. Some things, I don’t understand still, but I can see how God is growing me through the pain and I have confidence that one day I will understand and receive my blessing.

You can have that same confidence, simply ask Jesus into your life. You could say something as simple as "Dear Jesus, Please save me." He'll come into you're life and little by little every day you will find that He is changing you and growing you and bringing you healing and blessings and joy.