Does God care? Does God feel for me when I hurt? Is God touched by my pain?

Some early Christians believed in God’s ‘impassibility’ (from the Latin impassibilis, incapable of suffering). He was transcendent, beyond humiliation and suffering. Plato thought the gods were beyond pleasure and pain. Aristotle had his notion of an ‘Unmoved Mover’. These all believed that if a god felt pain this would contradict his omnipotence.

The Christian God is one who, through Jesus’ death on a cross, enters into the experience of our God-forsakenness. The Easter-event doesn’t only have to do with redemption from sin and the gift of eternal life. It’s about my suffering, today. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it somewhere: ‘Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.’

God feels pain, and conquers pain. His heart beats in tune with our griefs and sufferings.

‘No pain that we bear, but he has felt its smart; all forms of human grief and care have pierced that tender heart.’ Thank you, Lord. Amen.

Related Articles:

• Lovers Of Pleasure More Than Lovers Of God
• My God Turns My Darkness Into Light
• God Will Redeem My Life From The Grave
• Blessed Are Those Whose Strength Is In You
• My Times Are In Your Hands

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