“The man on the street rejects believing in a God who permits suffering. They only want a God who will fix all things. The one who enters into suffering and weeps with the suffering ones is as much a stumbling block to modern man as it was to people in the New Testament era. The God who weeps at human suffering is the One who has revealed Himself. The “god” who has never known suffering and himself stops all suffering has not made himself known in history, although he seems to be the only “god” many in the world say that they will accept. The truth is, that kind of god does not exist. You can hear the people crying for this kind of god when they say, “If there is a God, why does He not stop war, starvation, disease, tragedy, war, etc.?”…All of our experience on this planet says such a “god” does not exist. But on the other side of this, all of my experience and the suffering world as I view it, says Jesus is the one true God who has been revealed: Weeping with us. Suffering with us. Bleeding with us. Wounded with us. Cheated with us. Betrayed with us. Forsaken with us. Dying with us. Not just dying with us, but raised for us and we with Him.” (From “The Self-Talk of God”, by H. Lamar Smith)
