In the Book of Job, Elihu offers a powerful insight about God’s character: God does not give up on people. While Job’s other friends spend their time accusing and debating, Elihu looks at suffering from a different angle. He suggests that pain can be one of the ways God gets our attention when we are distracted, stubborn, or overly confident in our own thinking. Elihu explains, “Behold, God works all these things, twice, in fact, three times with a man” (Job 33:29). The point is clear. God keeps reaching out again and again. Scholar David McKenna notes that the number could easily stretch even further, perhaps “seventy times seven,” echoing the language Jesus used when He spoke about forgiveness. Elihu believes suffering can serve both a protective and a healing purpose. He says God works through hardship to “Bring back his soul from the Pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.” In this view, pain is not simply punishment. It becomes something like a bright marker across the page of life, drawing attention to God’s grace when we might otherwise skip right past it.
That idea runs against how many people naturally think about suffering. When life becomes difficult, it is easy to assume that God has stepped away or lost interest. The old tempter enjoys encouraging that conclusion. Hardship becomes his favorite talking point. He whispers that pain proves God does not care, that suffering means we have been abandoned, and that difficulty signals divine anger. The goal is simple: convince people to mistrust God. Yet the Bible describes a very different picture. Our struggles are not signs of cruelty from heaven. Instead, they can be evidence that God is still involved in our story. Paul wrote in Romans 2:4 that God “has been very kind and patient, waiting for you to change,” and that His kindness is meant to lead people toward repentance. Pain can sometimes function like the warning lights on a car dashboard. They are not pleasant, but they are meant to prevent something worse. In daily life, hardship can redirect our attention, slow our pace, and remind us that we are not nearly as self-sufficient as we sometimes imagine. Many of us have discovered that we listen more carefully when life becomes uncomfortable. Apparently our hearing improves when the road gets rough.
The message of the New Testament shows how deeply God cares for people even in suffering. The Psalmist celebrated this love long before the time of Christ, writing, “For his unfailing love is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the East is from the West.” The New Testament continues that theme. Paul assures believers that “God is faithful… He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Jesus Himself promised His followers, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). These words reveal that God’s presence does not disappear when life becomes painful. Instead, Christ enters directly into human suffering and walks beside His people through it. The cross itself shows that God does not stand at a safe distance from human pain. He steps into it. Because of Jesus, suffering is no longer a signal that God has abandoned us. It becomes another place where His steady love continues working, guiding lives back toward the light.