From the Pulpit: Devotion on suffering – Roman 5:12, 17

When it comes to dealing with suffering and pain in this world, one of the Bible’s teachings that gives a great deal of comfort, is Genesis 1-3. Let me explain. 

Genesis 1-2 is the account of the creation of all that exists. God created the universe in six days and he rested on the 7th. After each day of creation, we hear… “God saw that it was good.” Now, good to God is perfect. Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 were perfect. And after day 6, after he had created mankind, God saw all that he had made and saw that it was “very good.” 

God created a perfect world. One that was absent of death, absent of pain and suffering. And that fact alone, brings us comfort. Because although our world is full of death and pain and suffering, we know that wasn’t God’s intention. 

Suffering, pain, and death were ushered in by what happened in Genesis 3. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and sinned, the world changed and the history of the world would never be the same. 

When I think of the how God feels about suffering, pain, and death, I can’t help but think of the story of Lazarus. Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, had died and Jesus showed up after his death, during a time of mourning. 

When Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus, he wept. He wept because this was never how it was supposed to be. People were not created to die. People were created to live. But sin brought death. Paul says in Romans, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”

God didn’t want for his creation to suffer or to die. But God would choose to use that suffering and death for his good purposes. 

God himself would enter our human existence. Jesus would take on human flesh. God would become like us – so that he could bear our sin; so that he could suffer in the worst way possible; so that through his suffering and through his death, we would have life. 

Look at what Paul says here: “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reighned through that one man, how much more will those who received God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

God used suffering and death for our ultimate good – for our salvation in Jesus. Knowing that along gives us peace, no matter what we cace in life. And it also convinces our hearts that God can use the suffering and pain that I experience in this life for my ultimate good as well.