God’s Response to Suffering

I’ve been thinking about suffering and pain a lot lately. I hope to go into more detail about the subject in the future, but for now I’d just like to examine one passage from Exodus. This is Moses’s encounter with God through the burning bush. The Israelites had been in bondage in Egypt for a long time now and were crying out to God because of their situation. God then speaks to Moses through a burning bush and says,

“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…”-Exodus 3:7-8 (ESV)

God does four things in this passage.

1. He sees their affliction

2. He hears their cry

3. He knows their sufferings

4. He comes down to deliver them

There’s so much to be said about each of these. God saw the pain and the misery of the Israelites and the evil that the Egyptians were afflicting them with. He heard them as they cried out to him, and he knew their sufferings. And finally, he came down to deliver them. Our God is one who acts. He is one who so desires to bring healing, redemption, and newness that he comes down to deliver.

In the midst of our pain, affliction, and suffering, God sees us. He hears us. He weeps with us and hurts with us because he truly knows our sufferings. And it’s his desire to come and deliver us. Let us not lose hope that he will.