That's what his name Immanuel means. "God WITH us." With us in our suffering.

Some people are into pain. I am NOT one of those people. I am thinking of the scene in Job 1 and 2 of the Heavenly Court, where God says to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?" I wonder, if Job could have been present at that moment, would he have been jumping up and down in the back, waving his hands, trying to get God's attention? "No No No No Noooooooooo! Please pick someone else?!?!" I surely would have. But notice his actual response?... to fall to the ground

Many times, Christians seem to think that we should have a pain-free life. Like perhaps suffering or pain must be God punishing us for our sin. And maybe if we were spiritual enough, maybe we wouldn't be hurting so much. But Scripture doesn't teach that. In Isaiah 53, the Message tells us about God's son, the Messiah Jesus, "Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain." Over and over again, Jesus told his followers that he was going to Jerusalem where

I grabbed an unknown book off my shelf on my way to the hospital with Covid. Someone had given it to me at least a decade ago, and it had sat on my shelf for years, unread. The title caught my eye, and so I stuffed it in my bag. It was With God in the Crucible: Preaching Costly Descipleship, by South African Pastor Peter Storey. I started reading that first day, and immediately burst into tears...