By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“If you wrestle with him, seek him, cling to him, God will meet you in your pain.”

– Craig Groeschel

I don’t understand why God would let this happen. Why do bad things happen to good people? How could God do this to me? How can a good God allow so much suffering to enter the lives of His people? Why did God allow so much pain to come to me?

“Why, God?” is the cry of the hurting, the suffering, and the broken. If they could but grasp a sliver of understanding, if they could be let in on some kind of divine secret, if only God would shed some light on their situation, maybe their suffering would be eased. Somehow, they feel the answer to why may be able to satisfy them.

The husband who lost his wife to a drunk driver. The parents who are huddled over their baby who isn’t likely to make it through the night. A family member who has been diagnosed with cancer; doctors say only months to live. The mother left to raise her four kids alone when her husband left in the middle of the night. This is where Christianity gets messy. It is in the midst of suffering that our stock answers and rhetoric can’t appease a follower in crisis. The pain is real. The hurt is unbearable. And the biggest question they have is “Why”? A question no one on earth can come close to answering.

It is here that the real wrestling begins. In the midst of the darkest and most painful seasons of our life, it’s us and God, tumbling in the mud and muck of our suffering.

We want answers. We want things to return to normal. But instead, we are met with silence. One of the most difficult things outside of the suffering that we experience is trying to have faith in the midst of it. Trusting that God is still good, that He has a plan, that He knows what He is doing when our life is spinning out of control.

When a Christian wrestles with God, there is faith in the wrestling. We put God on the witness stand and demand answers for the situation in which we’ve found Him guilty. Why have you done this to me? How could you let this happen?

Can you hear the faith in those questions? They speak to a God that is good in the midst of tragedy. A God that is loving in the midst of heartache. There’s trust in the wrestling. God show me where you are in all of this because I believe you have to be here somewhere.

It’s impossible to wrestle with someone who is not near. God is right there with us in the midst of our suffering, our questions, our doubts, and our fears. He’s near and He hears us. He is still in control.

When tragedy strikes and we begin to wrestle with Him, God draws near, feel His warmth, hear His voice, experience His touch.