Hope, Forgiveness and Knowing: Gospel Remedies for Pain, Fear and Anger

“I am afraid!” he said. “I am afraid that all that is in store is more pain, and I have experienced so much pain in my life. I just don’t think I can take it anymore.” He said with fear and anger in his voice. “I just don’t see how anyone, let alone God could love me. Not after what I have been through.” He felt the pain of being separated from humanity and God. He could not ignore it, and he was angry with God.

How do we connect someone like this with the larger story of God’s redemption? What overcomes pain, fear and anger? Hope, Forgiveness and Knowing. 

Pain and Hope

We have all heard the expression, “Hope springs eternal!” We hope that tomorrow will be better than today; that the pain will go away. The problem is the hope that we often look for is based in the temporal, physical nature of life.

We want God to bless us with riches, a good job, a family without problems and the list goes on. But when things don’t go our way we look at our circumstances and cry out, “God, where are you?”

In the face of this the apostle Paul says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us… For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:18-27).

Paul’s instruction is two-fold; First, when you are experiencing pain and suffering look to the hope of the new creation, when all wrongs will be made right. Look to the time we will be remade. “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2b) This hope is the eternal bedrock we stand upon in the storm.

Second, remember the Holy Spirit is with you. Hope comes with knowing that when we cannot utter a word, “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” We are not alone!

Fear and Forgiveness

Often when we are in a difficult situation we feel separated and fear God. We listen to the lie that says, God is all-powerful and could stop my suffering but he chooses not to and is untrustworthy and to be feared. He is a tyrant.

There are typically two ways that people react to this. They run and rebel against God shaking their fists in hatred of him. Or they cower, living their lives constantly wondering if they are good enough to appease the angry giant.

For the believer Paul answers:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

And again,

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?... For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:31–39)

Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus because as Isaiah 49:16a says, “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”

Anger and Knowing

Many times when we suffer our initial response is to lash out in anger, especially when we feel that our suffering is glossed over.

In response to this Paul tells us that God sent “his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh…” The prophet Isaiah said of Christ, “Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his for marred beyond human likeness… He was despised and rejected by man, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering… Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows…But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities… He was oppressed and afflicted” (Isaiah 52-53; NIV). He entered our suffering.

The Puritan David Clarkson said this,

           

He knows all of our infirmities. None of them are so small that does not take notice. We may feel our afflictions are more than we can number, but he counts them exactly. He does not only know them notionally, but experimentally. He has himself been exercised with them. He knows their weight and how they smart, for he felt them. He knows by experience what it is to be in need to have nothing upon which to ride, and no where to lay his head. He knows what it is to be in pain, and to be despised, abused, reproached and hated. He knows the sorrows of life and the pangs of death by his own experience… He knows what it is to be deserted by his friends and to be forsaken of God. He became like us in all these things… He not only has suffered what others feel, but suffers with them in what they feel.[1]

He was tortured and killed to purchase us. He suffered physical and mental anguish so that we might know the peace that comes from forgiveness.

[1] David Clarkson, Works, 111:81–85