Let's Talk About It | Where is God when it all goes wrong?
2 Corinthians 12:7–10; Romans 8:18–39
Recap
Few questions are as universal—or as difficult—as the question of suffering. If God is good and powerful, why do terrible things happen to people who don't deserve them? And if God hears our prayers, why do some seem to go unanswered?
Sunday we explored God's relationship to suffering and the role of prayer when life doesn't turn out the way we hoped.
We began by challenging the familiar phrase, "Everything happens for a reason." While usually well-intentioned, it can suggest that God deliberately arranges every tragedy for some hidden purpose. But Scripture offers another way of understanding suffering: There's a difference between believing everything happens for a reason and believing everything can be used for a purpose.
In Romans 5, Paul reminds us that God can produce perseverance, character, and hope in the midst of suffering. That doesn't mean suffering itself is good or that God caused it. It means God can bring something good out of circumstances that were never good to begin with.
We also considered how, in Jesus, God doesn't simply observe our suffering from a distance but enters into it. On the cross, Jesus identifies with the innocent victims of suffering, and through his resurrection, he demonstrates that suffering, shame, and death don't have to have the final word.
Then we turned to prayer. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul pleads with God to remove a painful struggle he calls a "thorn in my flesh." God doesn't remove it but instead tells Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Paul doesn't receive the relief he requests, but he discovers God's sustaining presence in the middle of his struggle. Jesus offers a similar picture in Luke 11, promising the Holy Spirit to those who ask—the very presence of God with us.
That brought us to Sunday's central encouragement: When we pray, our requests may not always be granted, but grace will always be given.
Sometimes prayer changes what's happening around us. Sometimes it changes what's happening within us, giving us the strength, courage, and hope to face what we cannot change.
Go a Little Deeper
One of the most important things to notice about Paul's experience in 2 Corinthians 12 is that his unanswered prayer doesn't cause him to abandon his faith. Instead, it leads him toward a different understanding of God's power.
Throughout much of 2 Corinthians, Paul is defending his ministry against people who seem to expect an impressive spiritual leader. In their world, strength, success, status, and public displays of power were often taken as evidence of someone's importance.
Paul turns those expectations upside down.
Rather than boasting about his accomplishments, Paul begins talking about his weaknesses. He describes hardships, opposition, and the mysterious thorn that continues to trouble him. And then he makes a remarkable statement:
"When I am weak, then I am strong"
(2 Corinthians 12:10).
What does he mean? Paul isn't suggesting that weakness is inherently good or that Christians should seek out suffering. He's discovering that God's power doesn't always look the way we expect it to look. We tend to imagine God's power primarily as the ability to eliminate our problems. But Paul discovers a power that sustains him even when the problem remains.
This connects with something Paul writes in Romans 8. In Romans 8:22–23, Paul describes the whole creation as groaning, like a woman experiencing the pains of childbirth. He says that even those who have received the Spirit continue to groan as they wait for the fullness of God's redemption.
Notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't suggest that becoming a Christian means we stop experiencing the pain of a broken world. In fact, he assumes that followers of Jesus will continue to suffer and long for things to be made right.
And then, just a few verses later, Paul says something beautiful about prayer:
"The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans"
(Romans 8:26).
Think about that. Paul acknowledges that sometimes our suffering is so great that we don't even know what to pray. We don't have the words. We don't understand what's happening. We may not even know what to ask God to do.
And Paul's encouragement isn't that we need to figure out the right words or summon up enough faith. It's that the Spirit meets us in our weakness, even when we don't know how to pray.
This gives us a different way of thinking about prayer. Prayer isn't simply a transaction in which we make requests and wait to see whether God grants them. It's a relationship in which we open ourselves to God's presence, even when we are confused, disappointed, angry, or afraid.
That doesn't mean we should stop asking God for specific things. Paul certainly didn't. Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane that the cup of suffering might pass from him. Scripture invites us to bring our real desires, fears, and needs before God. But prayer is also an opportunity to receive something we may not have known to ask for: the sustaining presence of God.
Perhaps that's why Paul can end Romans 8 with such extraordinary confidence. After acknowledging suffering, hardship, persecution, and even death, he declares that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not because nothing terrible will happen to us, but because whatever happens to us, we will not face it beyond the reach of God's love.
Christian hope isn't the conviction that everything will work out the way we want. It's the conviction that suffering and death do not get the final word, and that the love of God will not abandon us in the meantime.
Discussion Questions
What part of Sunday's message stayed with you the longest? Was there something that challenged you, encouraged you, or left you with more questions?
Have you ever heard someone say, "Everything happens for a reason," in response to suffering? How do you think that idea shapes the way people understand God?
Sunday we talked about the difference between believing God causes suffering and believing God can redeem it. Why do you think that distinction matters?
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul pleads with God to remove his thorn, but it remains. What do you find comforting—or frustrating—about Paul's experience?
What do you think it means for God's power to be "made perfect in weakness"? How is that different from the way we usually think about power?
Romans 8 describes both creation and believers as groaning while waiting for redemption. What does that suggest about the relationship between Christian faith and the reality of suffering?
How has your understanding of prayer changed over the course of your life? Have you ever experienced God's grace in a situation where your circumstances didn't change?
Sunday we talked about how suffering can sometimes become an occasion for compassion, deeper relationships, or personal growth without making the suffering itself good. Have you witnessed that kind of grace in your own life or someone else's?
What might it look like for our church to become a community that doesn't feel compelled to explain people's suffering, but instead learns to be present with them in it?
Suggested Practice
This week, make some space for a different kind of prayer.
Begin by identifying something in your life that feels unresolved. It might be a difficult relationship, a concern about someone you love, a loss you're grieving, or a situation you've been asking God to change.
Spend a few minutes telling God honestly what you want. Don't worry about making your prayers sound spiritual or finding the right words. Ask for what you need. If you're frustrated, say so. If you're afraid, acknowledge it. If you don't know what to pray, that's okay, too.
Then spend a few moments in silence, simply making yourself available to God's presence.
You might use Paul's words as a simple prayer: Your grace is sufficient for me.
As you move through the week, pay attention to the ways grace might be showing up. Perhaps through the kindness of another person, an unexpected moment of peace, the courage to have a difficult conversation, or the strength to take one more step.
You don't have to pretend that everything is okay in order to recognize God's grace. Sometimes grace is precisely what helps us acknowledge that things are not okay and discover that we are not alone.
And if someone you know is suffering, consider how you might become an expression of God's grace to them. You don't have to offer an explanation or find the perfect words. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is simply show up.
Closing Prayer
God of compassion,
We confess that there is so much about suffering we don't understand. We see things happen that seem terribly wrong, and we struggle to reconcile them with what we believe about your goodness and love.
Forgive us for the times we've offered easy answers to questions that deserve more care. Teach us to resist the temptation to explain away the pain of others, and give us the courage to sit with people in their suffering.
Thank you that in Jesus, you have entered into the deepest places of human pain. Thank you that you are not distant from our grief, indifferent to our wounds, or unfamiliar with our weakness.
Teach us to pray honestly. Give us the courage to ask for what we need and the trust to remain open to your presence when life doesn't turn out the way we hoped.
Where healing is needed, bring healing. Where relationships are broken, bring restoration. Where there is fear, bring peace. And where circumstances do not change, may your grace sustain us.
Help us recognize your Spirit at work within us and among us. Make us people who carry one another's burdens and become expressions of your love in a hurting world. And remind us that no suffering, no loss, and no darkness can separate us from the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Amen.