When Life Hurts
Suffering is not really a question of if. Jesus made that clear in John 16:33:
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
That’s where Pastor Mike O’Connell began Sunday’s message from the book of Job. The question isn’t whether we’ll walk through difficult seasons. At some point, all of us will. The question is how we respond when they come.
We All Carry Different Things
Pastor Mike took time to acknowledge that pain doesn’t look the same for everyone. One person may be walking through a hard week at work, tension in a marriage, or a disappointment they didn’t see coming. Someone a few seats away may be grieving a parent, facing a diagnosis, or carrying a loss that changed everything.
There’s no need to compare pain or decide whose situation is harder. Whatever you’re carrying is real, and it still needs somewhere to go.
Pastor Mike introduced a word we may not often connect with suffering: stewardship.
“We are called to steward suffering.”
We may not get to choose everything that happens to us, but we do get to choose what we do with what we’re carrying. And when suffering is handled in a healthy way, even the hardest parts of our stories can become places where other people see the faithfulness of God.
When the Bad News Keeps Coming
Job 1 introduces us to a man whose life changes almost instantly. Job had a large family, tremendous wealth, and a life that seemed secure. Then, one after another, messengers began arriving with devastating news.
His livestock was taken. His servants were killed. More possessions were lost. Then came the news no parent ever wants to hear: all ten of his children had died.
The phrase that keeps appearing in the passage is “while he was still speaking.” Before one messenger had even finished delivering the news, another was already arriving.
Pastor Mike described it this way:
“These losses didn’t even wait their turn. Before Job could process one report, another bad report was showing up.”
Some seasons feel like that. You’re still trying to understand one thing when something else happens. There’s barely enough time to catch your breath before another weight gets added.
Job’s response gives us a picture of what it can look like to walk through that kind of pain.
He Wept
Job 1:20 says:
“Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship.”
The first thing Job did was grieve. He didn’t pretend everything was okay, and he didn’t rush past the pain to say the right spiritual thing. He let himself feel the weight of what had happened.
Pastor Mike reminded us that there is nothing faithless about grieving.
“Faith isn’t the absence of grief. Faith gives our grief somewhere to go.”
Sometimes we can be quick to reach for the right Bible verse or an encouraging answer before we’ve even admitted that something hurts. But processing pain matters.
“If you don’t process your pain, you’re going to transfer your pain.”
Grief can look different for different people. It may mean crying, praying, journaling, talking with someone you trust, or sitting with a counselor and finally saying out loud what you’ve been carrying. And when someone else is hurting, we don’t always need to have the perfect thing to say. Later in Job’s story, his friends sat beside him for seven days without saying a word because his suffering was too great for words.
Pastor Mike said it simply:
“Sometimes hurting people don’t need our explanation. What they need is our presence.”
He Worshiped
Job grieved deeply, but that wasn’t the end of his response. He also worshiped. He fell to the ground, and instead of turning away from God, he turned toward Him.
Pain has a way of making us reach for something. Sometimes we reach for distractions. Sometimes we bury ourselves in work, relationships, substances, spending, or anything else that can quiet the hurt for a little while. But none of those things can carry the full weight of what we’re feeling.
Job turned toward God. And worship in this moment wasn’t about singing a song or pretending to feel better. It was trust.
“I don’t understand what You’re doing, God, but I still trust who You are.”
That’s worship too.
Don’t Let Pain Redefine God
As Job’s suffering continued, the people closest to him began offering their own explanations. His wife told him to curse God. His friends eventually decided Job must have done something to deserve what happened.
They were wrong.
Job still had questions, but he refused to let his circumstances completely rewrite what he believed about God. And one of the most powerful moments in Job’s story comes in chapter 19:
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.” Job 19:25
Job said that before anything had been restored. He was still grieving. His circumstances had not changed. He still didn’t have all the answers. And yet, somewhere in the middle of all of it, he could still say, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
You Can Grieve and Still Trust God
Pastor Mike closed with the story of a pastor in our own church family who woke up eleven years ago and discovered that his wife had passed away during the night. There was no quick ending to that grief. He has continued to carry the loss while raising daughters who love Jesus and spending years pouring into children and families through ministry.
His grief didn’t disappear, but it also didn’t become the end of his story.
That’s one of the clearest reminders from Job’s story: you don’t have to choose between grieving and trusting God. You can admit that something hurts and still believe God is good. You can have questions and still worship. You can make room for the pain without turning away from Him.
What Do You Do With This?
Think about what you’re carrying right now. Have you given yourself space to grieve it, or have you been trying to move past it too quickly?
Maybe there’s something you’ve been carrying alone that you need to finally say out loud to someone you trust. Or maybe someone in your life is hurting right now, and what they need most from you isn’t an answer. They may simply need you to show up and sit with them.
Whatever season you’re walking through, you don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. You can bring the grief, the questions, and the parts you don’t understand to God.
And in the middle of all of it, you can keep turning toward Him.
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