GUEST ARTICLE - 9 (GOD CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR SORROW AND PAIN - WRITTEN BY MR. RAVI SHANKAR)

On the evening of 22^nd March, 2014; we went visiting house by house to share the Gospel (Good news) to them. On our way, we went inside one house, a very small hut I would say. It is such a small house. There was this lady who was staying alone. She will be around 60-65 yrs of age. She is from the Catholic background. Then she opened up and started to share with me her pain and problems. 

Given below is what she shared with me:

All my life, I have been more passionate and steadfast for Jesus Christ. I used to pray for hours daily and fast many days. The locality where I live is predominantly occupied by other religious people. In their midst, I am so zealous for Jesus Christ. Before some years, my daughter who was 18 years old at that time died due to a disease. A year before, my husband died and now I am all alone in this house. My neighbours are ridiculing me saying that, “You said Jesus Jesus all the time, you prayed to Him all the time. But see; what He has done to you? He has taken one by one from your family and left you all alone.” When I hear those words, I used to cry and ask God why have You done this in my life? But then, in due course of time; I tend to have this feel of Hatred in my heart towards God. 

As I was totally helpless and did not know how to respond, I was praying inside my heart to GOD asking for a word from him for that woman. After everything, since we don’t know what to say; I told her, “Aunty, we will pray now. God will certainly comfort you” and He really did. As I started to pray, suddenly the Holy Spirit put a word in my heart and I clearly know that the word is for that woman. From then on, that word became a life-changing revelation for me. This is what God told & taught me that day. 

It is true that the woman lost her daughter & husband and staying all alone. But God told to her that only He can understand her pain because He had gone through the same pain of losing His beloved for us. Many times, we used to think this way that “no one can understand my pain, my situation. Even God does not understand my situation”. Because if He has, He would have shown up.

      

My dear friends in Christ, let me tell this very clearly to you. Among all the so called GODs in this world, only our Father GOD can understand the pain that comes out of the loss of a loved one. Because He went through the same pain by losing His beloved son Jesus Christ for us, a totally underserved group of people. So be sure of one thing, even the whole world can’t understand the pain & agony you go through, Jesus Christ does understand your pain; because on the cross; the father and the son was separated because of our sins. Also on the same cross, Christ consumed death and rose again on the 3^rd day victoriously.

The verse in Hebrews 2:18 says like this; “For in that He himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted”. Also, in Hebrews 4:15, the Bible says like this, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin”.

Secondly, God taught me that day; only our “God can change a loss to one of his children as a profit to many in the world”. Take a good look at Joseph in the Bible, God gave him dreams when he is young describing that, he will be held in a head position and his entire household will bow before him. But the course of the story changed in between and the father Jacob lost his son Joseph. Joseph was sold as a slave in Egypt. After many years, there came a severe famine upon the face of the earth. At that time, Joseph was appointed as the prime minister of Egypt and all the nations of the world came to him to get their grains for their daily living. If you see clearly, for Jacob, losing Joseph was a big loss and he was not even able to come out of that pain for quite a long time. 

But God changed this Joseph as a blessing for the whole world. Take Moses for this case and you can see the same hand of God working like as that in the life of Joseph. Above all, take Jesus Christ, for the Father; to give away His only beloved son on the cross is a huge, unimaginable loss. But He willingly gave Him away to redeem us from this sinful and cruel universe. For the Father it is a huge loss to give away His son. But He changed the same loss into a fountain of blessing to the whole world as it records in John 3:16, “God gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish and have everlasting life”. 

So my dear friends, if you are having loss in your life physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. Remember our God is very much able to change that loss into a profit or blessing to many. So thank him for every adverse situation in your life because, God is going to change you as a blessing to many. Jesus told to Peter like this, “After you get comforted, you comfort your brothers”. In the similar way, God will comfort you in your adverse situation and He will enable you to be a source of comfort for others as it says in 2 Corinthians 1:3,4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God”. 

Finally, don’t ever forget this verse irrespective of whatever you go through in your life. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” – Romans 8:28.  

May our Lord Jesus Christ reveal more of his unconditional Love towards you in the coming days. God bless you.

(Note: This article was written by Mr. Ravi Shankar. He is currently working as a software engineer. GHG team thank Mr. Ravi for the article. May God bless him abundantly. If you wish to send your own article, kindly mail it to goldenhandsofgrace@gmail.com)