Our God Suffers Too- Guest Blogger

Our God suffers too.

I recently received an email from my cousin from California, who was talking about the suffering of God.

In Isaiah: 53:3-4, it says that He (Christ) was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquianted with grief...Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

At different times in our lives we all have suffered. I never thought of our God having suffered except on the cross when He paid the price for our sins. When I began to think about it, I realized that God suffered when a third of the angels rebelled and he had to throw them out of his presence. I know that He must have suffered when Eve let Satan tempt her into believing that she would be like God by eating the fruit from the forbidden tree. I know that He suffered when Adam ate of that fruit freely without thinking. I know that God must have suffered when He had to throw them out of the Garden. I know also that He suffered when Cain, the first born of Eve killed his brother Abel.

I know that God must have suffered when He decided to destroy the world except for Noah and his family because of sin in the world.

I know that He must have had many sufferings when He sent his beloved Moses to help save Israel out of Egypt and Israel continually rebelled against him.

I know also that God suffered as his only begotten Son suffered and died for all of us on the cross on the Friday we call Good Friday.

Because we are born sinners, Christ was sent from the Father to pay the price of suffering and death for us. His blood was shed for our sins. That is why we are buried with him and raised with him on Easter Sunday.

by Roger McIlwain

NOTE: Roger is my friend, prayer partner, and a deacon at my church. He wrote this piece and I offered to place it on my blog- with a few minor edits. It comes from his heart to yours.

Roger is right- God suffers too. One of the great philosophical questions of all ages concerns the mystery of suffering. Why must people suffer? One clue to the answer comes when we realize that our God suffers too.

For Holy Week 2009, that thought can be mind boggling.