There’s a song I love by Scott Wesley Brown named “When Answers Aren’t Enough.” It makes the point that whatever we’re going through, Jesus is always there and he’s way more than just an answer. That has been a valuable reminder in the past few weeks as I’ve watched tragedies unfold.

Some of those tragedies you’re all aware of: the shooting in Las Vegas, the truck in New York and the recent church shooting in Texas. These events leave us stunned and asking once again those questions about why God allows people to perpetrate such violence, in some cases against his own. In the midst of all of this public tragedy, my family has been dealing with its own private pain. One of my relatives has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer: one of those situations where the doctors all say there’s nothing to be done but to try to ease suffering until the end. Given that she is in her sixties, that’s enough of a source of grief, but she will leave behind two grandchildren that she’s been caring for since their mother’s death a year and a half ago. That leads even more to that temptation to ask why? After all, no human will caused this suffering.

I trust in God’s complete plan that he knows why he has allowed these things to happen and how all of them will ultimately “work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” Romans 8:28b (ESV). However, I don’t think that “why” is what we need today. I think we sometimes miss the comfort we are offered by getting caught up in the desire for understanding.

I believe there are two things that we truly need as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that we are all walking through in these days. The first is to know and learn to recognize that God is here and he truly cares. The psalmist says “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” Psalm 23:4b (ESV). He doesn’t say evil isn’t there: it is. But God is also there, providing guidance (the rod) and support (the staff). Many are familiar with the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept” John 11:35 (ESV). However, we forget to look at the context and recognize the point of the verse. Jesus has no personal reason to be sad here. Yes, one of his good friends, Lazarus, has died. However, Jesus knows what’s going to happen. He knows why Lazarus had to die. He weeps in shared grief with Mary and Martha and the others of the village. I don’t think we will ever fully understand why the self-sufficient God who created the universe allows himself to be moved, even grieved by our pain and suffering, but he does. And he knows when we need support rather than correction and direction or answers.

The other thing we need, equally important but definitely second in chronological terms, is perspective. I think for some situations that can be earthly perspective: the one that reminds you that you’re dealing with first-world problems. I have an email from my sister that I used to use for that one. She was living in a ger (or yurt) in a nomadic village in Mongolia, and this email describes the process of washing clothes in the winter in those circumstances. It was very effective in reminding me that many of my struggles are just not that bad.

Of course, when we face not the struggles of daily life, but rather life changing and life taking circumstances, the perspective we need is not earthly, but heavenly. In earthly terms, it really is that bad. This Monday, God used the Facebook Memories feature to remind me of that heavenly perspective. A post popped up from six years ago in which I had quoted 2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (ESV).

Those verses can be hard to read and hard to believe. What we’re going through doesn’t feel light and momentary. But it is. Our lives themselves are light and momentary from the perspective of eternity. And when we can learn to see the world around us from God’s perspective, at least a little bit, when we begin to recognize the unseen glory that awaits us, then we can find the strength to walk on in the pain of this life, leaning fully on the support God provides.