This is an extraordinary description of the tenderness of God and of his plans to put right all the wrongs in this world. God does not always offer us answers.
In this life, we might never really understand why some things have happened. But God always offers us himself. He offers us friendship. He longs for us to come to him, talk to him, bring our suffering to him. Whatever you face, you can choose to go through it without God or with him. What will you choose? What is Christianity?
Find a Course Run a Course. If God exists, why is there suffering? More tough questions How could a loving God send anyone to hell? Abi Weaver. Why are Christians such hypocrites? Kevin Croft, Hope Church Vauxhall. Begin exploring what it's all about. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, tells us about the new creation God will make in the future.
One day, God will make everything new and once again perfect and free from suffering. He Himself will live among His people. Until then, the world will remain in its imperfect state. Our choice is whether to experience life in an imperfect world in relationship with a perfect God or without Him.
Find out more about how you can know God personally. Our rejection of God and all the things that result from it are what the Bible calls sin. Suffering can be the result of different types of sin. This brokenness is evident all around us, from natural disasters to the fact that we cannot trust other people. Death itself is a result of original sin. Before the first people disobeyed God and went their own way, there was no death. Adam and Eve lived in harmony with God, who is the source of life.
Once humankind severed that relationship, death was the natural and inevitable consequence. If someone chooses to punch you in the eye, you suffer the consequences of their actions in the form of a black eye. If someone chooses to break into your home and steal your property and money, you suffer the loss of possessions and probably the loss of your sense of personal security.
God will usually allow you to experience the consequences of your actions, and that may include suffering in some way. This can be referred to as individual or personal sin. If you choose to cheat on a test, you may suffer the consequence of failing that test or the class, and there may even be consequences to your standing as a student.
If you choose to commit a crime, the consequence could be going to prison and suffering the loss of your freedom. God does not enjoy people's pain, but he does allow them to experience pain. Like any responsible parent, sometimes he imposes painful consequences designed to correct his children.
Often, though, the pain we experience is the natural result of our own choices or of living in a painfully broken world. Just as parents allow kids to suffer the consequences of their mistakes so they can learn and develop character, God allows people to suffer the consequences of their individual and collective sin.
Remember, there is an important difference between what God causes and what He allows. God created the world and gave people a free choice to obey Him and live in His perfect creation or to rebel by going their own way and suffer the consequences.
People chose to rebel. He respected our choice; He did not make that choice for us. God continues to respect our choice of whether or not to live under His authority and protection. He still allows people to choose whether or not to do what He wants in small things as well. If you are a parent, and you tell your child not to steal but they choose to steal anyway, they will face consequences.
But if that child then points the finger at you as the parent and says their actions and the consequences are your responsibility, that is not right. People often choose to hold God responsible for things they have chosen to do that result in one kind of suffering or another.
God loves you anyway. And as the greatest parent we could know, He cares about your suffering, whether or not it is self-inflicted. People often think of God as distant and immune to suffering. But the God of the Bible is not above suffering Himself. In the book of Genesis, we first encounter God as a loving parent. He creates in a way, gives birth to humanity in the form of Adam and Eve, and He sets loving boundaries for them. But they choose to reject Him.
They cut to the heart. God experienced this pain first. It is extremely frustrating when kids rebel against you and ignore the rules you established for their protection.
Throughout the Bible, we see people turning their backs on God and ignoring what He says. Sometimes they turn back to Him, only to reject Him again. If you are a parent, you can understand how deep and painful it is to have your children reject you repeatedly. He actually became a human in the person of Jesus and went through profound relational, physical and mental suffering. Jesus was rejected by the people He showed love to. He was abandoned by His closest friends when He needed them most.
He was given an unfair trial and accused of crimes He did not commit. And ultimately He was tortured and executed by His enemies, with His own mother as a witness, having done nothing wrong Himself. Jesus experienced intense suffering, and Jesus is God in the flesh, so we cannot think of God as being distant from suffering. Jesus actually chose to suffer so that He could one day bring an end to suffering for the rest of us and offer us comfort right now. Therefore, it was necessary for Him to be made in every respect like us, His brothers and sisters, so that He could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God.
Then He could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since He Himself has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested. Hebrews So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. The truth is that God hates to see people suffer. God does not want people to suffer, and He will end suffering. He just has not done it yet. His endgame involves a joyful eternity with no more suffering.
Find out more about how you can understand the will of God. Knowing that the human story will reach a good ending can give you hope in a world that sometimes feels hopeless. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. He will live with them, and they will be His people.
God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. This is what our hearts long for when we are grieved by the suffering around us and in our own lives.
God gave you the Bible so you could know Him. Clearly, He wants you to know that He has a plan to end suffering, but it has not yet been completed, as another passage from the Bible teaches:. But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. Not only does God care when you suffer, He cares so much that He chose to suffer for you so that one day you can spend eternity with Him in a world without suffering.
God chose to save you rather than spare Himself pain. Jesus chose to become a human and suffer and die so you could be forgiven and live forever with God.
For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.
When Christians describe this truth about God, they call God the Trinity. This aspect of God can be difficult to understand and is impossible to fully comprehend, but it is both true and reasonable. Any loving parent will tell you that sacrificing your own life is not the worst type of suffering. Parents would much rather sacrifice themselves if it spared their children. In this sense, God not only sacrificed Himself in the person of Jesus, but He accepted the deeper pain of sacrificing His beloved child.
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? God cares when people suffer in this life. The Bible makes this clear. King David was the second king of Israel. David was well acquainted with suffering. Before becoming king, he spent long periods of time on the run because the first king of Israel, Saul, was trying to kill him.
He rescues them from all their troubles. They frequently contain his pleas to God for deliverance from suffering. Psalm 13 is a great example of this:. How long will You look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. But I trust in Your unfailing love. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself.
He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. New York: Harcourt Brace, , p. How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! Although the Bible informs us how and why evil came about, it does not tell us why God allowed it to happen.
However, we do know that God is all-wise and all-knowing and that he has reasons for allowing things to happen that are beyond our comprehension. In this great book for new believers and evangelists, the authors tackle 65 of the most-asked questions about the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, miracles, other religions, and Creation in a question-and-answer format. The Roots of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Lewis, C. The Problem of Pain. New York: MacMillan, Martin, Walter. Plantinga, Alvin.
God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent.
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