Where Was God When I Was Hurting?
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” ~Isaiah 43:1b-3a
Trauma survivors have a hard time reconciling their past with God’s sovereignty. One of the most pressing questions is, “If God is so good, why did he let this happen to me? Where was he in my pain?”
Our internal sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, demands an answer. We want to believe that God is good, but it’s hard when it seems the enemy gets its way and we are left hurting. It’s tempting for us to arrive at a false conclusion, revealing flawed theology: either God is powerful but not good, or good but not powerful.
How would it make you feel to know that God was always there in your suffering, experiencing it with you?
Called by Name
When we talk about the experience of suffering, it’s very important that you understand this first: God knows you by name. Your relationship to him is personal. You matter to him, and he is with you always. In addition to the evidence in Isaiah 43:1b-3a (above), we have these references:
Isaiah 45:3: I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
Isaiah 49:1b: The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.
John 10:3: The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
No Place Hidden
Even in trauma, there is nowhere you can go and nothing you can experience that escapes his presence. Psalm 139 describes God’s all-encompassing knowledge of us and his presence with us in verses 7-12:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Through the Water
In the exciting story of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt––what imagery!––Exodus 14 describes that God appeared as a smoke screen to hide them from their enemies as they crossed the Red Sea. As a visible assurance of his love and care, he showed himself as fire at night and a bright cloud in the daytime as they continued through the wilderness. (Note how the oppression came first, then the rescue: God heard their cries for deliverance.)
Later in Israel’s history, God led his people through the Jordan River into the land he’d promised them. Joshua 3 gives the background to this event, but look closely at verse 7: And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.”
Through the Fire
Daniel 3:8-15 tells the account of three Hebrew young men who refused to worship the pagan Babylonian king. In his anger, the king ordered that they be tossed into a furnace, heated seven times hotter than normal to be sure they perished. I can only imagine the fear of these three, facing their death. However, God showed up––not to rescue them from the flames, but to walk with them! They lived through the terrifying experience, knowing God was sovereign over the flames.
How Is This Helpful?
Jesus came to earth to live and suffer as a human. By this we know that he, who endured greater harm than all of us, relates to us in our experience of trauma (Heb. 4:15). Not only this, he enters into our suffering willingly: Immanuel, God with us! Though we weren’t with him in his suffering, he is with us, never leaving or forsaking us (Josh. 1:9).
As a human in a broken, fallen world, the experience of suffering is unavoidable. We can’t change what has happened in the past, but we can locate our hope in the presence of the one who cares and saves.
“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.” ~ Psalm 12:5
©2023 Julianne Knapp. First published 9.26.23
Related Article Here: Where Was Jesus When I Was Being Abused?
John 15:17 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” ~Isaiah 43:1b-3a
Trauma survivors have a hard time reconciling their past with God’s sovereignty. One of the most pressing questions is, “If God is so good, why did he let this happen to me? Where was he in my pain?”
Our internal sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, demands an answer. We want to believe that God is good, but it’s hard when it seems the enemy gets its way and we are left hurting. It’s tempting for us to arrive at a false conclusion, revealing flawed theology: either God is powerful but not good, or good but not powerful.
How would it make you feel to know that God was always there in your suffering, experiencing it with you?
Called by Name
When we talk about the experience of suffering, it’s very important that you understand this first: God knows you by name. Your relationship to him is personal. You matter to him, and he is with you always. In addition to the evidence in Isaiah 43:1b-3a (above), we have these references:
Isaiah 45:3: I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
Isaiah 49:1b: The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.
John 10:3: The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
No Place Hidden
Even in trauma, there is nowhere you can go and nothing you can experience that escapes his presence. Psalm 139 describes God’s all-encompassing knowledge of us and his presence with us in verses 7-12:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Through the Water
In the exciting story of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt––what imagery!––Exodus 14 describes that God appeared as a smoke screen to hide them from their enemies as they crossed the Red Sea. As a visible assurance of his love and care, he showed himself as fire at night and a bright cloud in the daytime as they continued through the wilderness. (Note how the oppression came first, then the rescue: God heard their cries for deliverance.)
Later in Israel’s history, God led his people through the Jordan River into the land he’d promised them. Joshua 3 gives the background to this event, but look closely at verse 7: And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.”
Through the Fire
Daniel 3:8-15 tells the account of three Hebrew young men who refused to worship the pagan Babylonian king. In his anger, the king ordered that they be tossed into a furnace, heated seven times hotter than normal to be sure they perished. I can only imagine the fear of these three, facing their death. However, God showed up––not to rescue them from the flames, but to walk with them! They lived through the terrifying experience, knowing God was sovereign over the flames.
How Is This Helpful?
Jesus came to earth to live and suffer as a human. By this we know that he, who endured greater harm than all of us, relates to us in our experience of trauma (Heb. 4:15). Not only this, he enters into our suffering willingly: Immanuel, God with us! Though we weren’t with him in his suffering, he is with us, never leaving or forsaking us (Josh. 1:9).
As a human in a broken, fallen world, the experience of suffering is unavoidable. We can’t change what has happened in the past, but we can locate our hope in the presence of the one who cares and saves.
“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.” ~ Psalm 12:5
©2023 Julianne Knapp. First published 9.26.23
Related Article Here: Where Was Jesus When I Was Being Abused?
John 15:17 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.