Don’t You Care?

The disciples once asked Jesus that very question. A storm was raging, their boat was in danger of sinking, and Jesus, of all things, was asleep! Shouldn’t he have been awake and helping them? Didn’t he care if they drowned?

These men are not the only disciples to have questioned Jesus’ care. Many others have done the same. Need we look any further than ourselves? Like the disciples on the lake we have been in difficult, painful, alarming situations and have questioned, in the anguish of our spirits, if our Saviour really does care. In this brief article we tackle the question head-on. Does Jesus care?

Circumstances may tempt us to wonder if he cares. Isn’t this the case when difficulties are of long continuance? Or when afflictions are multiplied? Or when we seem specially singled out for suffering? A measure of difficulty we all expect. No-one imagines that there are going to be no hard times between here and heaven. But difficulties can go on and on and on with no end in sight, and they can increase in number rather than decrease, until we feel at last that God has marked us out for pain rather than for blessing. And when that happens it is so easy to find ourselves wondering if he cares.

Satan will allege that he does not care. In Ephesians Chapter 6 Paul writes of the ‘fiery darts’ or ‘flaming arrows’ of the wicked one. The reference is to the blasphemies, unbelieving thoughts, doubts, objections, malicious allegations, with which he troubles the minds of God’s children. Isn’t this one of them? – ‘Your Jesus doesn’t care!’ And he chooses his moment for shooting it well. Not when the believer’s heart is happy; not when the Lord is so evidently being good to him; – then is not the time to charge the Saviour with being uncaring. But when times are very hard and the believer’s heart is broken – then is the time he will strike. The notion of a caring Saviour, he will sneeringly say, is a myth.

The Bible assures us that he cares. In Peter’s first letter, for example, we are invited to cast all our care upon God because he cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). And since our Saviour is as fully divine as his Father in heaven the words are equally applicable to him. In Jesus we have a caring God and Saviour. Don’t we see it supremely at Calvary? We need to look at the question of Jesus’ care in the light of that amazing sacrifice and say to ourselves, ‘it simply cannot be that the Son of God should so love me as to suffer and die for me and then be justly chargeable with not caring for me.’

Experience confirms that he cares. What kind of Saviour have you found Jesus to be over the years of your Christian life? Think about his dealings with you in providence. Think about his dealings with you in grace. To you, to me, to every one of his people, he has been so very good and kind. He has certainly permitted hardships. But hasn’t he given us so many good gifts, and hasn’t he been so gracious to us as sinners? What powerful testimony each one of us can bear to the reality of a caring Saviour!

Jesus will prove that he cares. He did so to his disciples on the lake by calming the storm. And so he will do to his people who are sorrowing today. In some way or other, in his own perfect time, he will give the lie to Satan’s allegations and dispel his people’s doubts by showing that he cares. Wait for him! Be strong and take heart! You will surely see ‘the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living’ (Psa. 27:13-14).

It is for us to believe that he cares. The storm through which we are passing may be very fierce; the appearance of things may suggest that our Lord is indifferent; and Satan may be doing his utmost to convince us that he is indifferent. But he is not. Scripture asserts it; experience confirms it; and sooner or later the Lord will demonstrate it. These things being so our duty is surely to honour him by believing that he cares.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
But trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.