The Lord Grieves

This was my bulletin article for last week, and the previous post today was this week's article. I will soon have some pictures from the ice storms up for those that wish to gawk at those. Actually it was quite beautiful, and tremendously destructive, but more on that later.

“The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” (Genesis 6:6). This is profound Scripture that tells us about the nature of God. Our God is a God who hurts, who grieves, and who regrets.

We live in a culture that has somehow bought into the idea that this world is supposed to be perfect. Any pain and discomfort is seen as a tragedy. If something goes wrong, or if someone is in pain, our culture will look for a culprit or a scapegoat. We believe that we should not hurt or suffer.

God hurts. God suffers. God feels pain. We are made in His image, and that means we have emotions like His. God got to the point where people were so evil to each other that He couldn’t bear to let it go on. The creation that He loved and that he proclaimed as “very good” became a creation He regretted making. He wanted to just start all over. But he found one righteous man, Noah, and his family. He could not let them go. He would not destroy all, because there was still one man that loved Him.

God loves the same way. Instead of getting rid of the messes that life creates, God entered into our world. He hurt. He grieved. He got angry. He had compassion. He was tortured. He died. He did this because He loved His creation so much. He refused to let go of it completely. If you were the only sinner, He would have done it just for you. As Noah was one man who still loved God, our God is a God who will give Himself for just one person who He loves.

If God feels pain, and if He suffers, and if He endures the cross, who are we to think that we are above Him and should not encounter difficulty and struggle? We miss so much that God has for us to learn, and nothing worth doing ever comes without struggle and setback. Jesus wept. God in the flesh mourned.

When tough times come, God’s solution isn’t to take it away, but to be with us and help us through it. He identifies with our hurt and pain and He is there. He invites us to cry out to Him, sometimes even with our own doubts and accusing words. The kind of words we can only vent to someone who loves us and hurts and holds us when we just need to let it out. Read the Psalms. Many were written by people crying out to God and not even knowing if He was there to listen. But they had the faith to cry.

We have One to cry out to, to vent to, and to pray to. God understand disappointment and heartache even deeper than we can imagine. He experienced it when Jesus died. He experienced with His creation. The Lord grieves.