7 Questions God Isn't Afraid Of: Question 3 - Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Last week we looked at whether you can trust the Bible, and the evidence was strong. The proof is that the manuscripts hold up, many prophecies have been fulfilled, and the overall message of the Bible is one cohesive story.

(Click here to read question two)

However, there is a question that sometimes makes people close the Bible and walk away from it anyway, and no amount of solid evidence helps.

If God is good, and God is able, then why does He allow suffering?

Personally, I have asked this question many times. This is also the question people ask and use as the reason for leaving the faith more than any other. Last week I told you that I was not going to soften the answer, so I am not going to.

Where Suffering Came From

We have to start at the beginning because almost every wrong answer to this question skips where suffering actually came from.

When God finished creating everything, He looked at all He had made and called it "very good" (Genesis 1:31). There was no death or disease. There was no grief or sadness. God had created paradise. However, the world we are living in right now is not the world God originally made.

Something broke the perfect world that God created. In Genesis 3, humanity chose to believe the serpent's question instead of God's Word, and the consequence of this choice was dire. (To read about the serpent's question, click here)

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men" (Romans 5:12).

You see, death (and sin) was not part of God's original design. What's interesting is that the consequence of sin does not stop with us. Paul explains in Romans 8:22, "For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now." This means that earthquakes, cancers, failing bodies, and the cruelty people inflict on one another are all evidence that the world is not the way it was made to be.

So the first thing to understand is this: God did not build suffering into the design. We are living in the wreckage of a choice, and God has been working to redeem that wreckage ever since.

What the Bible Never Promises

Now I need to deal with something personal, because for a lot of people this is where the real pain comes from.

Somewhere along the way you may have been taught that if you love God enough, believe hard enough, give enough, or pray with enough faith, He will keep the hard things away from you. In a sense, this means that your obedience buys your protection.

I want to say this as plainly as I can: These beliefs are not in the Bible.

Here is what Jesus actually said. On the last night before He was arrested, Jesus told the people who loved Him most: "In the world you will have tribulation..." (John 16:33).

Jesus did not say that you might have tribulation; He said you will. This happens to be one of the promises in the Bible we tend to ignore or overlook.

Peter wrote it to a suffering church this way: "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you" (1 Peter 4:12).

Paul said, "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12).

Not one of them promised exemption from trials; they promised quite the opposite.

Failing to teach what the Bible says about suffering can do some real damage. Because when the suffering comes - and it comes for everyone - the person who believed they were exempt from it is left with only two conclusions. Either God failed them, or they did not have enough faith. Both of these conclusions are false and both drive people away from the only One who can actually help them.

If this happens to be where you are right now, hear me: your pain is not evidence that your faith is weak or lacking. Jesus told you this was coming. But He didn't stop there. What He said next we will get to in a minute.

The Questions Underneath the Question

Most of the time when someone asks why God allows suffering, they are not asking for a philosophical lecture. I don't think I have ever met a person in real pain who wanted a theological argument. What they are actually asking is smaller and much harder.

Does God see me? Does He care that this is happening? Is God still there?

I suppose many of us have asked these questions a time or two. I know I have. The fact is that we have to ground ourselves in the truth of God's Word to know that the answer to these three questions is a resounding "YES."

God does see us; He is everywhere at all times. He cares about each and every one of us; He is our Heavenly Father. God is always there; He never leaves us. No matter what we are going through, God will see us through it until the end.

Job Asked, God Answered - But Not the Way He Expected

There is an entire book of the Bible that revolves around the question, "Why does God allow suffering?" The ending of this book surprises almost everyone who reads it carefully.

By God's own account, Job is "a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8). Job loses his children, his wealth, and his health in a very short period of time. For thirty-seven chapters, he asks why, and when his friends give him wrong answers, Job holds his ground.

After all the back-and-forth conversation, God finally speaks out of the whirlwind. What's amazing is that God never tells Job why he endured all that suffering. In fact, God never mentions the conversations that took place at His throne in Job chapters one and two. God does not explain the reason. Instead, He asks Job question after question like, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?," "Have you commanded the morning?," and "Do you know the ordinances of heaven?" (Job 38-39)

God's answer to why Job went through the suffering was not a reason - it was God Himself.

God gave Job no reasons at all, and it was still enough. Job was not resentful at being brushed off. He told the Lord, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You" (Job 42:5).

Job never got the explanation he longed for. Instead, he got God, and he stopped needing the explanation.

I am not going to pretend that this is an easy thing to accept. But it is honest, and it is what the Bible actually gives us. If you are waiting for God to hand you a reason before you will trust Him again, Job is telling you that the reason you seek may not be coming.

What is coming is God Himself.

Not Every Hard Thing is Punishment

There is a conclusion most of us have when suffering hits, and Jesus dismantled it twice.

In John 9, the disciples see a man born blind and ask whose sin caused it, his or his parents'. Jesus answers: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him" (John 9:3).

In Luke 13, people bring Jesus a story about a tower in Siloam that fell and killed eighteen people. Jesus asks whether they think those people were worse sinners than everyone else in Jerusalem, and then answers His own question: "I tell you, no" (Luke 13:5).

In both scenarios, the crowd wanted something or someone to blame for the suffering. Why? Well, if suffering is always deserved, then the rest of us are safe. But Jesus refused to let them believe that.

If you have been quietly running an audit of your own life trying to find the sin that caused your suffering, you can stop now. Sometimes suffering is a consequence. Sometimes it is simply the result of living in a broken world. Assigning yourself the blame for your suffering is just one more weight you were never asked to carry.

What God Does with Our Suffering

This is where the answer turns, and it is important that I say it precisely.

God does not author your suffering. He redeems it.

Saying God caused your suffering and at the same time saying God can use it are not the same claim. A lot of people in real pain have been handed the first line by someone who meant the second, and it did damage. Paul says in Romans 8:28:

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

Read that carefully. It does not say all things are good. Some things are evil, and Scripture calls them evil. What it does say is that God works ALL things together for good. This means that God takes what was meant to destroy you and uses it for His plan and purpose for your life.

Joseph said it to the brothers who sold him into slavery: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). The brothers' act was still evil. And God still used it for good.

Paul begged three times for his thorn to be removed. It was not. The answer he received instead was this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). God did not take it away. He met Paul where he was. And Paul says something else, which, in my opinion, is the most practical verse in the Bible on this subject. He says that God "comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Some of the most useful people I have ever met are useful precisely because of what they went through and survived. They can sit with someone in a place the rest of us have never been, and they do not flinch, because they have been there. That is a picture of God refusing to waste the suffering they survived.

God Did Not Stay Outside the Suffering

Every other explanation for suffering leaves God at a safe distance, watching from afar. Christianity does not do this. Christianity puts Jesus right there with us in our suffering and trials.

• "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).

• ^"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15).

• At Lazarus's tomb, standing minutes away from raising him, Jesus wept anyway (John 11:35). He knew what He was about to do, and yet, Jesus cried with them first.

  
  

Whatever is still unresolved for you about this question, "why does God allow suffering?" you cannot say God does not know what it feels like. He came down into it, and not as a spectator. Jesus came and endured much suffering, and He came on purpose.

Suffering Has an End

The last thing, and this is our hope.

Suffering and trials are temporary. We know this because God has promised it. And God has never once broken a promise. In the end:

"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4).

Every single thing that has broken your heart or made you cry is on the list of things scheduled for removal. Death and pain are on that list. Sorrow, sadness, and crying are on that list.

Paul, who was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and eventually executed, weighed it and said: "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).

And the rest of the words Jesus spoke in John 16:33 that I left unfinished at the beginning of this article are this: "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

You see, Jesus did not promise that we would be immune from trials, tribulations, and suffering; He promised that He already overcame them all.

So, Why Does God Allow Suffering?

I am not going to end this article by pretending I have handed you a complete answer, because I know I have not. Anyone who tells you they can answer this question with confidence is not being totally honest.

Here is what Scripture actually gives us:

• Suffering was not God's design; it entered through sin. (Romans 5:12)

• God never promised His people exemption from suffering. (John 16:33)

• God does not always explain suffering, and Job proves He is under no obligation to do so. (Job 42:1-6)

• God does not waste our suffering. He uses it for His own purposes. (Romans 8:28)

• God often uses our suffering so we can help others. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

• God entered into suffering Himself rather than watch from a distance. (Isaiah 53:3-5)

• God has already promised an end to suffering. (Revelation 21:4)

  
  

These bullet points may not explain the "why" of it all, but they do stand on the truth of God's Word. And for all of us, this should be enough to stand when suffering, trials, and tribulations come. And isn't that really what all of us are asking for?

This Week's Question Sheet

Reference Sheet 3, "Why Does God Allow Suffering?" is ready for you. This one is worth keeping close. It lays out what Scripture says about the origin of suffering, what God never promised, and what He does with it. It also includes every reference in this post, all in one place, so that when someone you love is in the middle of it, you are not scrambling to find the words.

If you are already signed up, it is waiting on your sheets page. If you are not, you can grab the whole reference sheet set by filling out the information below:

Next week's Question #4 is: Why does God feel silent when I need Him most? If this post raised that question for you, you are not alone.

Until then, have a blessed week. See you next time.

Blessings,

Amy

I'd love to hear from you. Has anyone ever challenged you about whether the Bible is reliable, and how did you answer? Share in the comments below.