04/03/2026
We are assured that God sees, knows, and cares for us in our suffering.
Read: Ps 22:1-31
Reflect: When suffering comes we become susceptible to listening to the lies of the enemy. A few lies we hear: You are alone, your suffering is unique, God doesn’t love you, Where even is your God?, God has abandoned you and doesn’t keep his promises. Complete outright disgusting lies that we become vulnerable to. The enemy isn’t stupid, and he lures us to doubt because when we doubt God and his goodness we stop following him in faith.
Scripture never gives us a cookie cutter picture of life free of disappointments and heartaches. But that actually assures us that God sees and cares about what we are going through. He gives us hope in the middle of real world hardships. On the cross Jesus quotes Ps 22, and when we read the entire Psalm we begin to realize that Jesus is telling us this Psalm is about him. His suffering shows us that he is one with our suffering. Jesus willingly came to suffer, in order to purchase the guarantee that one day our suffering will be no more. As we suffer now, He is our comfort and hope.
Apply: Consider all the many ways God has helped and cared for you in hard times past. This can be a hard thing to do, so take a minute and look back and answer these questions, what was going on? How did it get resolved? What character qualities did you learn about God? ie: “God is….” Write down your answers so that you can look back and remember who God is even in the hard times.
Pray: O Lord, don’t be far from us! You are our help, and you quickly come to our aid! Just as the psalmist says, so do we. Thank you for seeing us in times of stress and coming to our rescue. Thank you Jesus for coming to earth and taking the suffering that we deserved. Thank you for rising for our everlasting life and joy. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.