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You prayed. You really prayed fervently.

You tearfully told God to turn this painful situation around. And it did not change.

Maybe you lost someone really dear to you after praying for God to save them. Maybe you lost that job you really prayed about because you have got no other way to pay your bills. Maybe your health has not improved after many prayers for healing. Maybe it is the fruit of the womb you really need. And like Hannah, you have prayed so many times for your Samuel.

Anytime you hear another testimony in church, your faith is renewed. But after months of seeing no changes in your story, your faith starts to dwindle. And these questions keep replaying in your heart.

God, why have you not taken my pain away?
What have I done to deserve this difficult seaon?

I know how difficult that season is because I have found myself there loads of times. I still have things I have been praying to God for repeatedly. So this message is for you as much as it is for me.

The most painful thing about going through something devastating as a believer is not just the pain itself. It is the question underneath the pain.

If God loves me, why did He let this happen?

That question deserves an honest answer.

God allowed it. And He never stopped loving you for a single second while it was happening.

Those two things can feel impossible to piece together. But they are both true. And the Bible gives us two of the most powerful examples of this that exist in all of Scripture.

Job was not someone who was undeserving of God’s love. The Bible describes him as blameless and upright, a man who feared God and turned away from evil. He was not being punished. He had done nothing wrong.

And God allowed the enemy to take everything from him.

His children died. His wealth disappeared. His health collapsed. He sat in the ashes scraping sores from his body while his wife told him to curse God and die and his friends told him he must have sinned to deserve this.

Job did not understand what was happening. He could not see that God and the enemy had a conversation about him. He could not see that God had pointed at him specifically and said there is no one like him on the earth. He could not see that the suffering was not punishment. It was a testimony in the making.

All Job could see was the loss. And he cried out to God repeatedly.

Job 1:21 says: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

That was not easy faith. That was a man choosing to hold onto who God is even when everything God had given him was gone.

And God never once stopped watching over Job. Every moment of that suffering, He never stopped caring. Every tear was recorded. God had not abandoned him. He was there the whole time, working toward something Job could not yet see.

If there was ever a moment that could make you question whether God abandons the people He loves in their pain, it is what happened on the road to Calvary.

Jesus, the Son of God, was beaten beyond recognition. He was mocked, spat on and stripped. He carried a cross through the streets while crowds jeered at Him. And He was nailed to it and left to die in public.

At one point He cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me."

Even Jesus, in the middle of the worst physical and spiritual pain any human being has ever experienced, felt the absence of God.

And yet God had not left Him.

The cross was not God abandoning Jesus. It was the most intentional act in all of human history. God was working out the salvation of every person who would ever live, through the suffering of the one person He loved most.

He did not stop the pain. He redeemed it into something that changed everything.

This is the part that is hard to accept. But it is true.

God's love for you does not mean He will protect you from every painful experience. It means He will always have a purpose for them.

Job's suffering produced a testimony that has encouraged millions of believers for thousands of years. Jesus's suffering produced salvation for all of humanity. Neither of them could see that from the middle of what they were going through.

You cannot see the full picture of what your pain is producing either.

That is not a comfortable thing to say. But it is one of the most important things a person in the middle of suffering can understand. Your pain is not evidence that God has stopped loving you or that He has lost sight of you. It is evidence that He trusts you with something that will matter far beyond what you can currently see.

Romans 8:28 says: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

All things. Not the good ones. Not the ones that make sense. All things. Including the ones that broke you. Including the ones you are still carrying. He is working through all of it.

Separate God's love from your circumstances. What is happening around you is not a measure of how much God loves you. Job's suffering was not a sign God had stopped caring. Jesus' cross was not abandonment. Your pain is not rejection. His love for you is constant regardless of what your situation looks like today.

Ask God to show you what He is doing rather than demanding He stop the pain. This is a shift that changes everything. Instead of the prayer being God take this away, try God show me what you are doing in this. That prayer opens your eyes to things you might otherwise miss while you are focused entirely on wanting the suffering to end.

Hold onto what you know about who He is. There will be days in a painful season when you cannot feel God at all. On those days go back to what you know is true about Him, not what you feel. He is good. He sees you. He has not forgotten you. He has a plan. Keep saying those things even when the enemy tries to make you stop believing them, because eventually you will realize they are all true.

Let the pain produce something. Job came out of his suffering with a deeper understanding of God than he had before. He said in Job 42:5: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." The pain brought him closer. Use the pain to draw even closer to God.

God watched Job suffer. He watched Jesus suffer. He did not look away from either of them for a single moment.

And He is not looking away from you.

The pain you are in right now is not a sign that He has stopped caring about you. It is not punishment. It is not evidence that your prayers are falling on deaf ears. Some of the people God loves most in Scripture went through the hardest things imaginable. And every single one of their stories had a chapter they could not have predicted from the middle of the pain.

Your story has that chapter too. You just have not arrived there yet.

Psalm 34:18 says: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

He is not watching you from far away and waiting for you to recover before He draws near. He is close. Right where you are. In the middle of the pain you have not been able to pray your way out of.

He is there. He has always been there. And He is not finished with your story yet.

✝ Kingdom Mantra

Anchored is completely free and I want to keep it that way for everyone who needs it. If today's teaching blessed you, you can help me keep this going by supporting the ministry. Even the smallest contribution makes a real difference. Support Anchored here God bless you for reading. ❤️

Is there a painful season you are going through right now that you are struggling to make sense of? Hit reply to this email or leave a comment if you are reading this on our webpage. I would love to hear from you and pray with you. God bless you and do have a great week ahead. ❤️

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