For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
Read this line twice and notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say God avoids causing suffering. It says that when he does, compassion follows — "according to the greatness of his unfailing love," as this version puts it. Cause and compassion, sitting in the same sentence, neither one canceling the other out.
That's a harder thing to accept than a simple promise that nothing bad will happen. Simple promises like that tend to break the first time life gets complicated. This verse doesn't make that promise. It makes a smaller, stranger one — that whatever happens, it isn't the end of the account, because compassion is scaled to something described as unfailing, not to the size of the trouble.
It's fair to be skeptical of comfort that comes wrapped in explanations for pain. This verse doesn't explain your pain. It just tells you what's supposedly still true underneath it — and leaves you to test that against your own life, in your own time.
If comforting promises have let you down before, this one is worth testing precisely because it doesn't promise the easy thing.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.