When Suffering Is Inevitable, Where Is God?
What if comfort isn’t about escaping pain, but about discovering God’s presence within it, and being changed forever by what you receive?
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Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
God of All Comfort
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.[a] 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
Suffering can play a role in our lives, either helping us come out better or leaving us bitter. Suffering has many faces: disease, cancer, natural disasters, persecution for faith in Christ, war, broken relationships, the death of a loved one, financial hardship, and the list could go on. All of it could be characterized as symptoms of a fallen world that place us at times in what we might call the furnace of affliction.
But into this reality, the Apostle Paul proclaimed a stunning truth: our God is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
The question we must ask ourselves: Is this a fairy tale or true?
The Vulnerabilities of Suffering
Before we explore God’s comfort, we need to understand the real vulnerabilities that come with suffering. Author Simone Weil wrote an article titled “The Love of God and Affliction” (with commentary added by Tim Keller), examining how difficult it can be to walk with God in the furnace of affliction. Let us identify five vulnerabilities:
1) The Problem of Isolation
Suffering almost immediately makes you feel cut off from the real world and isolated from friends who may feel no longer understand you. It is also true that many friends may stay away from a person going through affliction because they see something in you and what you’re experiencing that they’d rather deny, which is that suffering can come upon anybody. It causes others to face their own mortality.
2) The Problem of Self-Absorption
Suffering, understandably, makes it very difficult to think of others when you are in heightened pain. You have no margin, energy, or thought of anything but your own troubles. Over time, your trials can even lead to a type of pride. It can make you feel noble and superior to others who have not had to undergo the deep waters you’re presently navigating.
3) The Problem of Feeling Shame and Condemnation
Many of us do not feel guilty or even ashamed about some things we perhaps should feel guilty or ashamed about. But when great suffering hits, sometimes it is difficult not to feel as if you are being punished. There may be things that have no direct connection to the suffering you are going through that you now feel guilty about, and you may feel a vague, persistent sense that you have been condemned because of the suffering.
4) The Problem of Anger
Depending upon the context of the problem you’re facing, you may have anger at God, at other people, or even at yourself that can burn hot and fierce, and you simply feel you cannot control it. There is a more subtle form of anger that can begin to arise in the form of cynicism or sarcasm, and you become deeply sarcastic about the injustice or emptiness you face in life.
5) The Problem of Complicity
When someone becomes complicit with the affliction they’re facing, suffering can, little by little, turn the soul into its accomplice by injecting the poison of inertia into it. We may actually become comfortable with our discomfort. We may find the idea of taking on life’s responsibilities again too daunting. Our self-pity can become sweet and addictive. Our suffering can become an excuse for behavior we would otherwise not justify. Or we may feel we need to somehow pay for our sins, and suffering is a way to do it, so we choose to stay miserable.
The Contrast: The Nature of God
Now consider the gospel and God’s revelation in contrast to these vulnerabilities. Think about a God who came to earth and shared the good news that the liberation He was bringing through His death, burial, and resurrection is so liberating that it will set you free and bind the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18).
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God encapsulated in skin, understands a fallen world so completely that He knows there will be times when we encounter the furnace of affliction to the degree that it breaks our hearts. Yet God is proclaiming that the love of God, through His gospel and what Christ has done, is so powerful that it can liberate and heal brokenness. [READ MORE: The Problem of Evil]
Consider the meaning behind Isaiah’s words:
“Shout for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O earth! Break forth in song, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, and He will have compassion on His afflicted ones.” Isaiah 49:13
Think about the nature of a God like that—who has that kind of compassion, that kind of heart for His people.
Again, from Isaiah: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice” (Isaiah 42:3). What kind of nature does our God have in light of revelation like this?
What kind of God says to His people, “Cast all your anxiety upon me because I care for you” (1 Peter 5:7)?
What kind of God inspires Paul to write the words, “But God…comforts the depressed” (2 Corinthians 7:6)?
[READ MORE: How to Deal with Anxiety?]
God of All Comfort
The Apostle Paul proclaimed that our God is a God of all comfort:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3
When you think of comfort, you may picture a warm, soft blanket. Some might picture eating a pint of ice cream in a favorite hoodie, curled up on the couch in front of the television. Some might picture bingeing Netflix to escape troubles or at least numb themselves to them.
But that is not what the Apostle Paul is referencing. He isn’t talking about God removing pain and suffering, but declaring that God comforts His people in it. In verses three through seven, we see the word “comfort’ no less than nine times.
This word, “comfort,” has much more significance than somebody coming along, patting you on the back and saying, “There, there now, don’t cry, suck it up, you’re going to be okay.”
This word is loaded. This word, paraklesis, is Greek and literally means that God is coming alongside you. It literally means that God is providing encouragement, comfort, consolation, and strengthening. It signifies active support, not passive sympathy. God is active in your heart and life as a believer when you cry out to Him, when you worship, and when you praise Him amid your suffering.
God is described in a very unique way in this context. Notice what Paul does: this is not just anybody, this is God, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3). One of my favorite phrases in the Gospels is that little phrase that says Jesus was “moved with compassion” when He saw broken people, people like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36).
Paul describes Him in this context as “the God of all comfort.” Think about Jesus when He was getting ready to go to the Father and He told the disciples, “It is better that I go away” (John 16:7). One of the things He said to His disciples was, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16)—a Comforter, the person of the Holy Spirit to come alongside you. [READ MORE: Why the Holy Spirit Still Sets Souls on Fire]
The text becomes very specific about the type of suffering the Lord declares He will come alongside you in. He is available to comfort you in all of your troubles and suffering, as well as suffering through persecution.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction.” 2 Corinthians 1:2-3 (emphasis added)
The word “affliction” in the Greek literally means any trouble involving direct suffering. That is too good to be true and too true to ignore.
Any suffering, whether that’s disease, cancers, natural disasters, war, sins, and the fallout and brokenness that comes from it, broken relationships, death of loved ones, financial hardships, the list goes on. But it also includes persecution, which is why Paul wrote, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Corinthians 1:5).
A Tale of Two Prisoners
Let me share two episodes that illustrate how different responses to suffering lead to different outcomes.
There’s a book called The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun, who was in prison for his faith in China. When you read these pages, you see that even though he was suffering, he knew joy in the Lord. Even though he was suffering for Christ, he knew the Lord’s peace, even in prison.
I have also read another book by a missionary who was in prison in Turkey. This person documented that when he was in prison, he knew no joy nor peace, and he suffered without a sense of God’s presence and peace.
Brother Yun did something different from what the other person did. Brother Yun sang hymns to God in prison. He shared his faith with other prisoners. He saw prison guards come to know Christ. While he was in prison, he praised and worshiped God.
The other person, by his own admission, while in prison, suffered from the five vulnerabilities in suffering we highlighted earlier.
It is a tale of two lives and a testimony to us: if we become self-absorbed in our suffering, we forsake the comfort God offers us.
Years ago, I was in Laos (a persecuted country) and secretly ushered to an upper room to meet with Christians. The trip leader asked, “How many of you have been in prison for your faith?” Half the hands in the room went up. Then he asked, “How many of you have a loved one who has been martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ?” Five or six hands went up.
We wept together. But then we began to sing hymns and to worship God in prayer. The joy of the Lord, the peace of God, permeated the atmosphere. You could sense the shift in the room.
The Pattern: Worship in Suffering
It is not a coincidence, and it is easy to miss this, that when the Apostle Paul taught the church on the comfort we can know in Christ, even in suffering, that he framed it in a way that he was modeling worshiping God.
Do you see it in verse three? Look how the verse starts: “Blessed be God.” Paul was writing this amid suffering. However, while he was suffering, he turned outward: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:3). He was exalting God. He was moving beyond self-absorption in the suffering.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
That is what those Laotians knew in that persecuted country. That is what Brother Yun experienced, even in the furnace of affliction in a Chinese prison.
[READ MORE: How to Pray Without Losing Hope]
Comforting Others
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (emphasis added)
Scripture references what we can call the “one anothers,” which include:
love one another
build one another up in love
carry one another’s burdens
pray for one another
As believers, when we practice these and make them verbs in our lives, God is ministering to one another, ministering to the body of Christ, to share comfort with others as they are suffering.
Years ago, at my first appointment out of seminary, there was a lady in our congregation who, over a period of about five years, lost her husband, and she had previously lost a son in war, and she lost her other two sons in two different car accidents. It’s difficult to wrap your head and heart around.
However, every time I was around her, I marveled that while the suffering was real and she never sugarcoated it, she knew a joy and peace in God that just did not make any rational sense. Any time someone would go through a tragedy in the church, she was often the first one there, not only in the church I was serving, but in other churches in the city. She would just show up and speak words of hope to people.
She was living this pattern. She knew comfort in Jesus and had learned to praise Him without becoming self-absorbed. She praised Him in the storm. She knew the comfort of God and wanted to encourage others going through tragedy and suffering to know that same comfort.
That is what the love of God does.
[READ MORE: Encouragement to be an Encourager]
Union with Christ
“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:6-7
All of this is emanating out of the Apostle Paul’s union with Jesus and the church’s union with Jesus. Our union with Jesus is not transactional. It is not just “I’m in Christ, I’ve been delivered from the domain of darkness, and now I’m in the kingdom of light.” It is so much more than that.
This is a living union. The writer of Hebrews said your relationship with Jesus is “a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20). It is not like a cold rock; It is alive. You in Christ have a holy animation that comes from His presence, the person of the Holy Spirit. This union with Christ is intended to be a living union. It is not passive. It is active and designed to bring light and life to your circumstances.
What Is Possible in Christ
JESUS: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Matthew 7:24-25
Jesus’ words aren’t asking if you are measuring up; they should remind you of what’s possible in Him. In all of our lives, there have been, are, and will be seasons when the winds blow and beat on our house, but it doesn’t have to fall.
Let Jesus’ words remind you of what is possible in Hi,m and be reminded that He is good. Let His words encourage you that even amid suffering, Jesus offers comfort, strength, and peace.
As 1 John declares, God is love (1 John 4:8). That can sound trite to some people, but it’s the truth. He does not have harm in His heart. He has good in His heart, including good for you. Even though we aren’t perfect, God went to the cross in Christ because He knew that. He chose that, and it is rooted in His love so that imperfect people could be forgiven and reconciled in a living union with the Father. [READ MORE: Why Did Jesus Have to Die?]
That is unto many things, but one of the things it is unto is so that you can draw close to Him. And in drawing close, know His strength, comfort, love, and power in your circumstances.
A bruised reed He will not break (Isaiah 42:3). Draw near to Him, and He will come alongside you through the comfort of the Holy Spirit. He will strengthen, deliver, and build you up through the cross of Jesus Christ.
TL;DR
Suffering exposes deep vulnerabilities—isolation, self-absorption, shame, anger, and spiritual inertia—that can quietly shape our hearts.
Scripture declares that God is not distant in affliction but “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.”
Biblical comfort isn’t numbing pain; it’s God coming alongside us with strength, presence, and sustaining grace.
God comforts us not only to heal us, but so we might become carriers of His comfort to others who suffer.
