Christianity Today July 14, 2026 9 min signal 2026-07-14

Is God punishing me?

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Christianity Today

July 14, 2026

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WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

Suffering. Nobody wants it. And rarely can we make sense of it.

## Jesus Will Meet You There: Finding Strength and Comfort in the Savior Who Understands

Kristen Wetherell (Author), Sarah Walton (Author)

Multnomah

256 pages

That’s why, when life hurts, we often look for someone or something to blame. Something is awry, and our pain needs somewhere to go.

At times, there’s an easy target for our blame. Someone ran a red light, and their negligence is now the cause of our debilitating back pain; a friend spread a false accusation against us, and we’re left to pick up the pieces of our reputation; a doctor’s error turned a routine surgery into the heart-wrenching loss of our loved one.

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But that logic has nowhere to go when a diagnosis shatters our once-comfortable life or a tornado rips through our town, taking the life we knew right along with it.

Most often, we turn in one of two directions: We blame God, who we trusted to protect us from such senseless heartbreak, or we blame ourselves, convinced we must have done something to deserve such pain.

Like many of us, the disciples wanted to make sense of the suffering they saw. Therefore, when they came across a blind beggar in John 9, they boldly asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). In their eyes, there was no third option. Someone was to blame.

Let the implications of this sink in for a moment. The disciples weren’t trying to be cruel by questioning this poor man and his parents. It simply exposes our human tendency to try to make sense of what seems senseless. After all, if we can pinpoint the cause, maybe we can prevent that same hardship from coming to us.

Have you been on the receiving end of this logic? It can sound something like this:

“Have you asked God to reveal the unconfessed sin that’s at the root of your suffering?”

“Have you figured out where you went wrong for this to have occurred?”

“Is there a generational sin that has yet to be confronted and confessed?”

“I bet ______ is the reason God allowed this to happen.”

Sometimes those accusations and assumptions come from others, and sometimes they come from within our own troubled hearts. Either way, they stem from the belief that we should have complete control over (or at least know the cause of) our circumstances.

Of course, at times we suffer the natural consequences of our choices. (For example, if I make unwise financial decisions, I may fall into debt.)

However, much of the suffering we endure is simply part of living in a fallen world groaning under the curse of sin, death, and decay. We can’t control the genetics we were born with, the stock market crash, the drunk driver who careened across three lanes, the flash flood that even weather radar systems didn’t see coming, or the countless other challenges that come at us without notice. No, most of the suffering in this world contains mysteries that God alone knows. It’s prideful to believe we have more control over our circumstances than we really do.

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us to our floundering selves.

Jesus confronted the disciples’ distorted belief system: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3, ESV).

This poor blind beggar had suffered greatly throughout his life. We don’t know if he heard the disciples’ question to Jesus or not, but here’s what we do know: Jesus immediately defended him. Had this man sinned? Of course he had. And so had his parents. But Jesus clarified this wasn’t the cause of his suffering. Not only did Jesus challenge their simplistic view of suffering and ultimately point them to the greater purpose of his glory; he also fiercely defended a helpless man. Jesus was like a father stepping in front of a child: To get to him, you’ll first have to go through me.

What a Savior we have—forgiver of the sinner, helper of the helpless, defender of the defenseless. Yes, he came to expose the darkness of hearts, but he also came to shine the light of his hope and glory into the dark places of our pain (v. 5). It’s tempting to assume God looks at our pain and wonders, Why are you struggling? Don’t you see that I’m doing something through it?

But Jesus’ heart is empathetic, not critical. His life on earth shows us how much he still empathizes and grieves with us over the brokenness of the world. And everything he does brings him the greatest glory and us the greatest good (Rom. 8:28).

If we question that truth, we’ll constantly question his heart for us when we can’t understand his ways. But Psalm 56 assures us, “This I know, that God is for me” (v. 9, ESV). Our faith will be bolstered when it’s founded on the knowledge that God is undeniably, without a doubt, for us.

Like Jesus, we can acknowledge pain for what it is. But even when it all feels pointless, we know our story isn’t finished. Jesus simply asks us to trust him as we endure in the waiting.

Jesus sees everything from a multidimensional viewpoint, whereas we see only from a one-dimensional perspective. Even more than our temporary comfort, Jesus desires to partner with us in displaying his goodness and glory. He does this for our deepest joy and to awaken the hearts of those around us.

But before he can work through us, he must work in us. As Paul Tripp writes in Everyday Gospel, “God often uses the hardest things in life to produce the best things in us. … God often compromises our comfort in order to produce something even better in us: godly character.”

Although we’d be satisfied with quick relief, Jesus has so much more to give us than momentary happiness. Because of that, he sometimes allows the temporary pain of our suffering (the very thing we may assume is a punishment or sign of his displeasure) to chisel away our rough earthly edges to shape us more into his image.

### Was It Really God’s Perfect Plan to Amputate My Foot?

Stef Reid

### What’s Truly Mortifying

Myles Werntz

Friend, your suffering isn’t God’s punishment, and it’s never pointless. Jesus is always at work in ways we can’t see in the moment. And it’s always for the purpose of showing the goodness and glory of God to us, in us, and through us.

Still, we think, If I just knew why, then I could endure. But what we ultimately need more than anything else is not the light that shines on the answers we want but the light of Jesus himself.

Jesus could have explained the man’s blindness, but he didn’t. That wasn’t what the man really needed. Yes, it would have been God’s undeserved grace to spare him from a gene mutation, disease, or whatever caused his blindness. His life would have been easier. Had that been the case, though, would he have come face to face with Jesus? Maybe not. He would have been content with his physical sight, despite walking in spiritual darkness. But in the hands of a powerful God, it was also an undeserved grace for the blind beggar’s life to become a remarkable story of redemption that led him (and those around him) to spiritual sight.

You may not see it now, but answers to your pain won’t bring ultimate comfort. Only nearness to Jesus will. Jesus wants what is best for you and has the power to bring it about.

More than anything else, John reminds us that it is only the light of Christ that will illuminate these dark days. Not always in a way that makes sense of them, but in a way that leads us to see that his presence and comfort in our pain are greater gifts than the answers we seek.

Jesus may not tell you why you lost your job, but he’ll show you how personal of a God he is as he provides for specific needs that only he knows exist. Jesus may not tell you why your cancer has returned, but he’ll infuse you with God-sized courage, comfort, and strength one moment at a time.

When Jesus is near, the need to know why fades into the background.

As Charles Spurgeon once said, “My dear friend, sometimes God works a greater wonder when he sustains people in trouble than by delivering them. To let the bush burn with fire and not be consumed is a greater thing than quenching the flame and saving the bush.”

God could display his miraculous power by changing our circumstances in one fell swoop, making others stop and wonder for a time, Who is this God who does such miracles? But when others around us (both Christians and non-Christians) see us enduring in suffering because Jesus is a greater treasure than the relief we desire, it continuously puts God’s power, glory, and worth on display to all those who are watching.

My fellow sufferer, if you have heard the whispers that you are to blame for your hardships but you see no clear correlations between sin and its natural consequences, take heart. Your suffering isn’t reduced to the effect of your choices.

Jesus tells us clearly in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” We may not be able to make sense of the why behind our circumstances, but we are not left without hope. We can face the difficult days ahead with the peace that Jesus gives, knowing his redeeming power will have the final word. He has overcome the world, and if we are his followers, then we, too, will be overcomers.

Excerpted from Jesus Will Meet You There (WaterBrook, June 2026) by Kristen Wetherell and Sarah Walton.

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