This isn't really a post about my Journeyman application or anything, but more of a post of a way that God really blew my mind.
I like to read Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening every now and then. Last week I was reading one and Spurgeon was talking about Exodus 3:7b, which in the ESV says "I know their suffering." I was really just blown away. I looked up the verse and the context, and Exodus 3 is where God reveals himself to Moses. I looked up different translations of the verse. In the NLT the verse reads "I am aware of their suffering." The NIV reads "I am concerned about their suffering." And then I read it in the ESV which reads "I know their suffering."
This brought up some questions for me. Does God really know our suffering? Or does he just know about it and is concerned about it? I don't know Hebrew (yet), so I can't really look at the verse in the original language to decide. But as perhaps some of you know, I think my favorite verse has a lot about to say about this exact thing!
John 1:14! It says, "The word became flesh and lived among us." This is, as many people have described it to me, absolutely incredible, and sooo earthy if you really think about it. God himself experienced all sorts of physical things, such as headaches, stomach aches, throwing up, diarrhea, and all manner of crazy earthy things! It may seem a little bit disrespectful to refer to Jesus in this way, remarking on these things, but I think it really shows his humanity. Not only did he experience these physical representations of suffering, but he also experienced insane amounts of emotional and spiritual suffering. God himself experienced grief and heartache. The Bible says that "Jesus wept" when he was brought to see Lazarus. But of course, I think the greatest representation of Jesus' suffering is the cross, when he experienced suffering in the most excruciating way, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
So, to answer my questions, YES, God really does know our suffering. He knows it both as knowledge, but also existentially, because he was a man, and has experienced everything that we've experienced. And this is just absolutely incredible to me and such a cause to worship God. I pray that if you're in the middle of suffering, that you might be encouraged by the fact that God himself has been there, and He can really relate to you, and moreover, he really wants to relate to you. So I think all the translations are true of God; he is aware of our suffering, he's concerned about our suffering, and he really does know our suffering in an existential way.
Praise God :)
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