Sometimes, it’s hard to understand what God is thinking when we face painful circumstances. Knowing God could have prevented the trial we’re going through makes us question His heart toward us. Is He cold, stern, and uncaring? Does He just stand aloof and watch us suffer?
I was helped in dealing with some of these questions by Dane Ortlund’s book, “Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers.” Three insights stood out.
1. Jesus’ heart is gentle and lowly
Ortlund shares how his father learned from Charles Spurgeon that there’s only one place in all of the 89 chapters that make up the gospels where Jesus describes His own heart. In Matthew 11:29, Jesus famously says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
The word translated “gentle” is the same word that appears in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus talks of the blessedness of “the meek” (Matthew 5:5) and in 1 Peter 3:4 where he talks of the beauty of a “gentle” and quiet spirit. Jesus’ heart is the opposite of overbearing, self-serving, and aggressive. He’s meek and gentle.
The word “lowly” describes someone who is “humble” in James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5, but it can also describe someone’s circumstances. In Luke 1:52, it speaks of those in poor conditions or “humble estate.” In 2 Corinthians 7:6, it’s translated as “downcast.” Jesus lowers Himself and comes down to our level. His birth in a manger set the tone for everything that followed.
Ortlund clarifies that when the Bible speaks of the heart, it’s referring to “the central animating center of all we do. It is what gets us out of bed in the morning and what we daydream about as we drift off to sleep.”
Jesus is first and foremost gentle, meek, and down on the ground with us in humble concern.
2. God is all about mercy and grace
Some might think, “That might be how Jesus describes Himself, but God seems a lot angrier than that in the Old Testament.” Ortlund is helpful again in taking us to the foundational description of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. Exodus 34:6-7 is God’s revelation of Himself to Moses, and the Old Testament authors quote it again and again.
God passes in front of Moses, saying:
“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
God doesn’t reveal Himself as “critical and stern” or “impatient and uncaring.” He always leads with mercy and grace. When there’s anger, it’s been a long time coming; He doesn’t have a short fuse or a quick temper. He’s responsible for justice and warns that our sins will impact us and several generations, but His love and forgiveness will reach “to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9). In other words, the impact of His love and forgiveness on those who turn to Him is limitless.
Mercy, grace, and forgiveness are at the centre of God’s heart toward us.
3. God takes no pleasure in your pain
It’s comforting to think of God in these ways. We long for His mercy, grace, and gentleness. But those qualities are hard to reconcile with the painful trials we often go through. Is God powerless to do anything? Or is He usually merciful but turns stern when He has to “teach us a lesson”? Ortlund is helpful in pointing us to Lamentations 3:33 for the answer.
The verse appears in a book that is all about grieving. The people are reeling from the most gruesome disaster in the nation’s history. And it’s clear that God is responsible. After explaining that there is a limit to what God has done (Lamentations 3:31) and offering assurance that “though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (Lamentations 3:32), the prophet says, “for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33).
Whether for our growth, our discipline, or the collateral damage that results from the judgment that sin has brought on this world, God must at times bring grief and affliction, but He doesn’t do it “from his heart.” He doesn’t enjoy it. He feels the heaviness of our pain.
As He says in Ezekiel 18:32, “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone.” Our pain pains the heart of God. When we hurt, it hurts Him.
By contrast, God delights to bless us. Feel the enthusiasm expressed in a verse like Jeremiah 32:41, “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”
When we’re confronted with suffering, it’s easy to think that God has finally shown His true colours. We allow the pain to define God when the reality is that He’s grieved by it as well. He delights to bless us and is near to us in our trials—always compassionate, always gracious.
If you’re wondering whether God cares, look at Jesus. His gentle and lowly heart finds its deepest expression at the cross where He died for you. God isn’t just watching you suffer. He’s with you in it and doing something deeper than you can ever see in the moment.
In awe of Him,
Paul
