- God Is Kind, Gentle And Sensitive
- God Cares About Our Pain
- God Is Always Listening
- God Values Us Highly
- God Has Promised That Things Will Get Better
God Is Kind, Gentle and Sensitive
I don’t hear Christians talking about these attributes of God as much as I would like. Yet God’s kindness is one of His attributes much talked about in the Old Testament. When God passed by Moses, to show Moses His glory (in response to Moses’ request), God said these words about Himself:
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34:6-7)
In the New Testament, Paul points out that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance: Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? (Romans 2:4)
We do see from the Bible that God gets angry but instead of worrying about that we need to understand when He gets angry and who He gets angry with. When He spoke to Moses He also said He was slow to anger (see quote above from Exodus 34:6-7). David made this interesting statement about God:
To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
to the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. (2 Samuel 22:26-27)
This implies that God’s treatment of us reflects the way we treat others. Those of us who are kind to others will be treated the same way by God. God is not “angry” with those of us who are in pain. There may be sin in our lives that He wants to show us but He will do it in a kind and gentle way. John explains in his gospel that Jesus has shown us what God the Father is like:
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:18)
So, studying the life of Jesus is a good way to know God better. It’s important to realize that Jesus did not treat everyone the same way. In general Jesus was kind and compassionate towards people; it was only with the religious leaders that He was confrontational and stern. And Jesus had good reason: the leaders were supposed to be teaching the people about God and leading them to Him and they were not. So when you study the life of Jesus, look at how he treated the poor, the sick and the defenseless. There are specific mentions of Jesus’ gentleness. One of them, astonishingly, is a prophecy made by Zechariah about what the King (Jesus) would be like when He comes:
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)
Jesus also says of Himself that He is humble and gentle:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
This verse from Isaiah (which I quoted in the introduction)tells us about Jesus’ sensitivity towards those in pain:
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. (Isaiah 42:3, also quoted in Matthew 12:20)
Many Old Testament passages speak of God’s sensitivity. He is genuinely grieved when we ignore Him or let other things in our life be more important than Him. In Genesis we read about how grieved God was by the way people were thinking and acting:
The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. (Genesis 6:5-6)
Unlike us, God has no sin (in 1 John 1:5 we read “God is light: in him there is no darkness at all“) so He never overreacts towards us as a protective mechanism. He always loves us and always wants the best for us and His actions towards us are never “retaliatory”. Christians often fail to be gentle and kind to others because we are all selfish by nature, but God has no selfishness in Him. So, He is kinder and gentler with us than we are to each other. Remember that God is kinder and gentler than the kindest human you know, and don’t be afraid of letting Him in to the most hidden parts of your life. He is already there anyway: we cannot hide from His Spirit, as this Psalm explains:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)
God Cares About Our Pain
The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus understands us and can help us because He has suffered and been tested just like we have. Therefore we’re encouraged to bring our needs to God in prayer with confidence:
Because [Jesus] himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Whatever pain we’re experiencing, Jesus has experienced it too and He understands. God does not trifle with our emotions. If He is allowing us to suffer there is a reason, just as there was when His own Son Jesus suffered and died on the Cross. God does not willingly allow us to suffer, as the following verse from Lamentations tells us:
For [the Lord] does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men. (Lamentations 3:33)
We are told in Psalm 56:8 that God keeps all our tears in a bottle – He notices every one:
You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
[Are] [they] not in Your book?
(Psalm 56:8, New King James Version)
When we are in pain God is not somewhere else – He’s right there with us. In this Psalm David affirms that God is with us to comfort and guide us even in the “valley of the shadow of death”:
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)
God, being sensitive and compassionate and being right there with us when we suffer, feels our pain and shares it. We see Jesus sharing the pain of Mary and Martha when he wept at Lazarus’s tomb:
When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:33-35)
David tells us in this Psalm that God is close to the broken-hearted:
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)
God Is Always Listening
Sometimes we long to have the opportunity to talk to someone (human) who will really listen to us and care about us. That is not always possible, but we need to remember that God is always available to listen to us, and unlike humans, we always have His full attention. He is never distracted and He will never cut us short on time because He has something more important to do :)! So go to Him when you need to talk to someone; it takes more effort than talking with a human, perhaps, but what could be more special than being able to talk to the God of the Universe? My personal experience is that when I am patient, God does answer me (not in a way I can easily explain – but I am different because I spent time with Him).
God Values Us Highly
Jesus said that we’re of great value to God; so much so that He’s counted every hair on our head:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matthew 10:29-30)
As we read in Ephesians, God chose us in Jesus before the foundation of the world to know Him and be in His family forever:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Ephesians 1:3-6)
God Has Promised That Things Will Get Better
One day God will do this for all of us who belong to Him:
[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
We need to hold on to this promise when it seems like the pain will never end. Paul gives us hope in the midst of suffering by pointing out that not only will our suffering in this life seem like nothing in comparison to the eternal glory which we will experience afterwards, but also that our suffering now is what is achieving the glory to come:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
Again, our suffering is not without purpose; nothing is wasted. Everything difficult God allows us to go through is for a reason (I will discuss some of God’s purposes in our suffering in the next section: “How Shall We Live?“.
Continue to “How Shall We Live?”; Back to “For Christians In Pain“.
Helen,
What a lovely and responsible post. I was so happy to read this and see that others get what God is about. I have learned to know God in a way I understand Him. He has revealed Himself to me in a way that I know He exists. He brought me to know Him through an act of Love. He didn’t make me feel ashamed, guilty, or like I had to clean up my act to be near Him and have fellowship with Him. He made me feel accepted, and like He wanted to have a personal relationship with me. I have known the lord for many, many years now and it is my privelage and honor to share my experience with others of the power of God in my life and how He makes a difference for me. I am so blessed to see the difference it makes to someone who is hurting and feeling the shame and guilt of the “well meaning” family and friends advise, to them opening up to the Lord when they understand that he loves them and wants only the best for them. I remember Jerimiah 29:11 often when sharing with those who are hurting, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you, but to prosper you.” Love can cover a multitude of sins and bring the heart into surrender with it’s application. The medicine that can only be applied spiritually is love and brings healing in any area of our lives and eases the pain. Thank you again for sharing this post. God bless.
Thanks Dottie. I wrote this about ten years ago. These Bible passages about God had comforted and encouraged me – they helped me through a difficult time – so I wanted to share them with others.
Thank you so much for this “wayback-machine” post — I arrived here through a link from your comment at another blog in which you were discussing whether your faith was genuine and deep before you became an almost-atheist/ex-christian/follower-of-Jesus. As they say in the christian world, your testimony is powerful 🙂
I’m a middle-aged atheist who became an atheist at 14 through intellectual questioning of my southern baptist roots, but also through “mystical” experiences (yep, mystical experiences made me an atheist), and, most importantly, a process in which I practiced, by creating in my mind an altered state of consciousness, being in a state of “believing”, deeply and “genuinely”, all sorts of things — I practiced “being saved” over and over again, and practiced believing in Krishna as a true avatar of Vishnu, and practiced believing as a muslim and as a jew and as a true-believing communist. I had practiced meditation and a kind of “reversibility thinking” that I had learned about in Joseph Chilton Pearce’s books, as well as “method acting” as an actor, so I had developed this technique of “practicing belief” very nicely.
All that practicing helped me to understand a lot about how someone could “know Jesus in their heart”, “have a personal relationship with Jesus”, and “know for certain that God exists”. In fact I had experienced “knowing for certain” that not only God, but other gods, such as Vishnu, Allah, and “the Deist god of Jefferson” existed.
Once I knew that anyone, including me, using simple tools of persuasion, emotion, and cultural symbols, could put me into a state of “grace”, I was certain also that atheism was the way for me.
But I also knew that “goodness” and “spirituality” and “mysticism” were also states of consciousness that I enjoyed and valued, so I also knew that I could never be the sort of hard-edged atheist that some of my friends and girlfriends were.
I actually enjoyed and still enjoy hanging out with christians and wiccans and advaitans and hindus and muslims as much as with atheists.
In fact I ended up being a religion major in college, along with chemistry and communication, because I value both “mystical” experiences and the experience and practice of valuing, and so see religion as a deep well of states of consciousness and ways of valuing that teach me all the time. I had a great time being the only atheist in many bible study groups, as well as the atheist guy who went to church/temple more often than most believers.
Science is also important for me though, and I don’t impute any “truth value” to any of the “spiritual” or “mystical” experiences that I have — I let them stand on their own, in all of their fantastic, non-logical glory.
In a way though, those experiences are the foundation of my atheism, so I sometimes call myself a “faith-based atheist”, as a joke but also as a conversation-starter both with atheists and with believers as a way into serious talk of values and states of consciousness and the enjoyment of all sorts of rapturous experiences that arise even in an atheist’s world.
And I enjoy being an ex-Southern Baptist so that I can make jokes about the Rapture when everyone at work goes out to lunch at the same time or make jokes about why Southern Baptists don’t have sex standing up (a reference to the anti-Terpsichorean theology of some Southern Baptists).
All of that I offer simply as background in complementing you on your very valuable postings both here in your own space and in others’ blogs.
Great work! And thanks especially for the notes on your “Almost an Atheist” presentation at the off the map conference.
I’m going to share lots of your stuff with a “Christians and Atheists in dialogue” group of which I am a member — last time we got together we discussed Jim & Casper.
Oh, and I loved your chapter in the book — I just looked and I see that I turned down several pages in that chapter and wrote a note to myself to look you up on the web, but, well, I never did, so I’m very glad that I found your web presence by accident!
Almost an atheist’s Providence, eh? Maybe even a little “Mystical” 🙂
scott hines
Thanks for your comment, Scott!
I hope you make it to Off The Map Live in November, so I can meet you in person.