Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

God’s Heart filled with Pain

Genesis 6v6  “The LORD was grieved … and his heart was filled with pain.”

God has emotions. He feels it when things are not as he would like them to be.

In Genesis 6, God is grieved that mankind whom he made and appointed has become so wicked. God appointed man as a ruler, under God, over the earth. God intended that man would live in his way and exercise “rule” in the way God exercises rule, that is with justice, love, grace, and goodness. When man declines to submit to the rule of God, God suffers in his heart.

This is of great value for us to understand. We think of Jesus suffering on the cross as he took our sin and suffered the sin and abuse of those who illtreated him. But God the Father also suffers.

This leads to three key questions:

• How does God feel about what is going on in the world today?
• How does God feel when I suffer injustice or evil?
• How does God feel when I do evil?

Several hundred years after the passage above, David is described as “a man after God’s own heart” (see 1 Samuel 13v14 & Acts 13v22). This seems to include that he shared God’s feelings towards what is good and what is evil.

Do the emotions of my heart mirror those of God?

With love and blessing,

Roland