Why Does God Allow Suffering?

I can't believe it has been so long since my last post! With projects around the house and overtime at work, time just flies by! I have still had many, many opportunities lately to discuss and encourage others in their walk with the Lord! I have had multiple encounters lately based on one theme: why does God allow suffering?

This seems to be the biggest challenge for believers and seekers alike. My own grandfather refused to believe in God for many, many years because he couldn't find a suitable answer for his question. So, how did I answer my friends?

Unfortunately, there is no one-liner to cover such a complex and important issue, so it takes some time to explain. It has to do with several factors.

First of all, we have to look at sin and how it entered our universe. It originally surfaced in heaven, of all places. Satan, who started out as an angel, began to question God's ruling. He became jealous. He coveted God's position and wanted it for himself. (see Ezekiel 28:17 and Isaiah 14:12 -14) He started a war in heaven with his accusations and was able to decieve 1/3 of the angels (see Revelation 12:7 -9). (Side note: King David's son, Absalom, did the same thing, nearly destroying the nation of Israel).

Now, what was a God of love to do? He could have simply annihilated Satan and all of the fallen angels and eradicated sin and rebellion right then and there, sparing the universe from the possiblity of sin and pain. But how would the angels and the onlooking universe have reacted? Would they still follow Him in love, or would they follow Him out of fear? Would they start to believe that perhaps Satan was right, and doubt for themselves? No, God chose another option: to let sin run its full course, vindicating His character for all the universe to see.

That takes us to the next point: God designed us for a relationship with Him. He wants us to love Him and to interact with Him. He designed us with freedom of choice, freedom to choose to follow Him, to love Him fully and openly, or to deny Him and ignore Him as we see fit. Only then can we truly have a love relationship with Him. If He designed us without the capability to choose, we would be more like robots, and we would only follow Him, not love Him.

God then made an unimaginable choice, to allow Satan to test and subject us all to all manner of sin. God knew that we would fall to this temptation, but out of His amazing love, he designed a plan in which we could all be saved, even when we fall. Part of God Himself, Jesus, would come to earth, live a perfect life, and die for us, in our place, sufferring the punishment that is truly due to Satan and his followers. So, with the plan in hand, He let it all play out.

With the choices open to us, and with Satan making accusations against God's character, the way was opened for the sin and pain that we see all around us. See the story of Job in the Bible for an example of what is going on behind the scenes. This man, Job (pronounced JOBE), was a righteous man. He followed God and loved Him with all his heart. Satan accused God, stating that no one could really love God, and that Job only followed Him and claimed to love Him because God had blessed him. If God would withold his blessings, then Job would surely turn away from God. But God knew Job truly loved Him, and so he allowed Satan to put all kinds of suffering on Job. Satan cursed Job, killed his entire family, took away all of his posessions, and even struck Job with a painful, but not deadly, illness, which made Job suffer immensely.

To make things even worse, Job's "friends" misunderstood the whole thing and kept telling Job that he must have brought it all on himself, and tried to make him abandon his faith. He had no support at all. In the end, God blessed Job, after he passed the test, and God restored much more to Job than what he had lost.

This helps to explain what happens to us in this life. Sometimes we are tested, as Job was. It may be for us, to strengthen our own faith. It may be for others that are watching, as it was in Job's case. Other times, our suffering has more to do with natural consequences of our own foolishness, or we are victims of another's bad choices.

In any case, the reason for a Christian's faith is not that we expect to avoid suffering. Quite the opposite, we expect it. We know that every person on Earth, by virtue of the world we live in, will experience suffering. But God has promised us two things: He will be with us in all of our troubles, and He will make all things right when the time is right. (see 2 Corinthians 4:16 -18; 2 Peter 3:9)