The Lord Is Close to the Brokenhearted: How Suffering Opens Our Eyes to God
"My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you." — Job 42:5
After all he went through, Job finally gets to the end of his story and he has a confession to make. It's not about being bitter or angry, it's just a simple, yet powerful realization: he can see things clearly now.
If the suffering had never come, Job admits, he would have remained in a faith built only on hearsay. He would have known about God — but never really known Him.
Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash
Suffering Forces Us to Stop
We instinctively avoid pain. We don't want to be hurt, to fail, to be wounded. And yet, the moments when we encounter God most deeply are rarely the easy ones. They are almost always the moments when our own strength has completely given out.
When life is comfortable, we naturally lean on ourselves. When everything is running smoothly, we barely feel the need for God at all. But suffering stops us. It breaks the familiar rhythm of life — and in that disrupted stillness, we begin to truly seek Him.
Suffering is not simply a setback. It is often a doorway. When we find ourselves standing in a place where nothing can be fixed by our own hands, something in us opens — and we begin to see what we could not see before.
When We Find Meaning in Pain, We Come Back to Life
What makes suffering unbearable is not always the pain itself. It is the inability to find any meaning in it. When we cannot understand why — that is when people break.
But when we begin to grasp that our pain is not wasted, that God is shaping something through it, a quiet strength returns. The circumstances may not have changed. But something inside us has.
God is no longer a concept we understand with our minds. He becomes the One who actually holds us.
Standing Honestly Before Your Pain
Is there something in your life right now that remains unresolved? An old wound, a recurring failure, a grief that sits heavy on your chest?
Instead of trying to get rid of your pain right away, take a moment to really think about it. You might be surprised to find that's where you feel closest to God. People who have been through tough times often come out stronger on the other side, with a new perspective - they're more humble, they see things more clearly, and they know what's really important.
Going through tough times doesn't just make us stronger, it also brings us closer to God's heart. There's a big difference between learning about God in a classroom and actually experiencing Him in our daily struggles. When we're crying out to God in the midst of real-life problems, that's when we truly encounter Him. This difference is what matters most - it's what helps us understand God's love and care for us in a deeper way.
Pain opens our eyes. And through our wounds, healing comes.
