How Does God Feel When We’re Suffering?

We certainly know how we feel when we go through trials. But how does God feel? A Hebrew word can help us understand the depth of God’s feeling for us.

Have you ever wondered what God is thinking or feeling when He allows us to suffer? Is He cold, callous and uncaring? Should we be impatient with Him or get angry as some do? Does the Bible offer any clues?

Is God harsh?

The question has often been asked, “If God is good, why does He allow suffering?” Much has been written to answer this question.

Can we accept that—as it is written in Isaiah 55:8-9—God’s thoughts are much higher than ours? Do we believe He is working out a purpose in our lives, and can we wait for Him to do so? Do we believe God when He says in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope”?

A revealing Old Testament word

In Isaiah 42:14, at the time when the LORD is about to go forth in fury to deliver His people from their enemies, He states: “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained [King James Version, refrained] Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once” (emphasis added).

“Restrained” (or “refrained” as the King James Version puts it) is here translated from the Hebrew word aphaq, which is quite different from the six other Hebrew words that can be translated “restrained” (Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon).

Aphaq very specifically includes a use of force added to the sense of “holding back” or “withholding” commonly understood in “restraint.” This indicates that some very powerful feelings are being controlled by an even greater force. This restraint is requiring great effort.

An example from the book of Esther

A second use of aphaq occurs in Esther 5:10, when wicked Haman “restrained himself” (again, translated “refrained himself” in the KJV) from reacting as he wished against Mordecai, Esther’s relative, when he refused to “stand or tremble before him.” It says Haman was “filled with indignation.” He must have been furious! But he “refrained” himself from immediate action to plan something bigger and worse!

The big lesson from Joseph

For the answer as to how God might be feeling when we suffer, we can look at a third place where aphaq is used: Genesis 43:31.

The word is used here to describe Joseph at the agonizingly emotional moment when his 10 brothers reappeared before him, along with Benjamin.

The scripture says that Joseph “yearned for his brother,” but he sought out a private place to weep (verse 30). After weeping in his private chamber, Joseph “washed his face and came out; and he restrained [KJV, refrained] himself, and said, ‘Serve the bread.’”

Finally in Genesis 45:1, we find that, at the right time, “Joseph could not restrain [KJV, refrain] himself before all those who stood by him” and ordered everyone out of the room except his brothers, and he “made himself known” to them. Verse 2 says he “wept aloud”—so loud, in fact, that “the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it.”  

So how does God feel?

While our merciful God very much wants to immediately answer a prayer, heal a sickness and intervene in any number of ways as we wish He would, He often has to temporarily refrain for our own good. And apparently He has to use His own power against His feelings to do so.

Can we be angry at God if we picture Him as Joseph was—struggling to hold back his emotions and tears while he tested his brothers’ sincerity? Can we be patient? Might understanding this be a key to patient endurance and to submitting to our Father’s will as Jesus Christ did?

While we, and the whole creation, wait for God’s deliverance, we are instructed to seek comfort from Him and to comfort one another through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

How will you see God? Will you see Him as the kind and merciful Father the Bible portrays Him as or as the cold, uncaring deity the world views Him as?

Read “God Is Good” to learn more of the attributes of God.