Why Suffering?

Can Anything Good Come from our Suffering?

One of the most frequently asked questions throughout history has been: Why would an all-powerful, good, and loving God allow His people to suffer? And, for those who try to answer this question, they often conclude:  If God is all-powerful, He could stop all the suffering. He doesn’t, therefore, God is either NOT all-powerful, or God is NOT good. I discussed some of these issues in my blog, “The Bonding Power of Human Tragedy,” but this time, I want to address a more fundamental question: WHY do we suffer?

In the process, I want to refute this idea that God is either NOT all-powerful or God is NOT good once and for all. I do not claim any special gift that might make it possible for me to succeed where others have failed – my only hope is to share what I believe God has already provided us in His Word – the Bible. My approach will be to address this question by starting at the end of the question and working my way forward.

Why would an all-powerful, good, and loving God allow His people to SUFFER?

The concept behind the question of suffering is to imply that all suffering is bad. Is that truly the case? Would you prefer to be raised in a bubble where everything is always perfect and free of suffering? I seriously doubt anyone would want that. BORING! So, let’s start with the question: Is there an upside to suffering? From my perspective, I’d have to vote a qualified “Yes!” Why? Because I think suffering comes in at least two forms:

• That which falls below the level of unbearable. I’m going to call this “ordinary” suffering.
• That which goes beyond the level anyone should have to bear. I call this “unbearable” suffering.

Ordinary Suffering

With regard to the first, when I look back on the times I “suffered” in my life, various reactions come to mind:

• • “I won’t make that dumb mistake again!”
  • “I learned how other people feel when…”
  • “It made me appreciate when times were good.”
  • “I now know how much I’m loved…”

It seems that, when suffering is (somewhat) bearable, we learn more, grow more, feel more, and change more because of our experience. Good times don’t seem to have the same impact. When times are good, our natural reaction is to enjoy them, to “go with the flow,” and not to think too hard about what might be around the next corner. We all know that the good times won’t last forever, so we enjoy them while we can. If this describes your life, can we categorically say that all suffering is bad? The two factors that tend to sway our opinion are: Duration and Intensity. When suffering goes on for an extended period, we all complain and ask when it will end. And, when our suffering is massive and unbearable, we couldn’t care less about what we might learn from it, we just want it to stop. In Psalm 13, King David lamented something we have all felt about our suffering:

How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever? How long will you hide from me? ²  How long must I worry and feel sad in my heart all day?  ³ Lord, look at me. Answer me, my God; tell me, or I will die.  Psalms 13:1-2 NCV

Do you see any indication that David blamed God for his troubles? No, his beef with God was that God did not answer his prayers within the timeframe that suited David’s desires. It was hard for David to accept that God took longer to rescue him from his troubles than he thought appropriate. David is not alone. We all think we know how God should answer us, when God should answer us, and what that answer should look like. But, if we’re honest with ourselves, do we really know – better than God – what is truly best for us?

Lessons Learned from “Ordinary” Suffering

You are stronger than you think! Treat your suffering as an opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better person. Seek God’s direction.

What about “Unbearable” suffering?

All the above benefits seem to go out the window when our suffering becomes unbearable. Whether it’s starvation, torture, a deadly disease, or political oppression, this type of suffering is generally where people question God and abandon Him. Yet, many of those questioning God may not be the ones speaking from experience – just those on the sidelines observing others and questioning why. Helen Keller, who was born blind and deaf, once said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”

That said, I don’t want to minimize the fact that intense suffering can (and often does) change us. We’ve even coined a name for it, PTSD. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event or series of traumatic events.”  The condition is real, and it may take years to overcome, if it can be overcome at all. Yet survivors of extreme suffering have a lot to say about their experience:[1]

• • • “To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime. I cannot ignore the fact that I live here.” – Blythe Baird
    • “Someone once asked me, ‘Why do you always insist on taking the hard road?’ I replied, ‘Why do you assume I see two roads?'” – Unknown
    • “If you continue to carry bricks from your past, you will end up building the same house.” – Unknown
    • “As every therapist will tell you, healing involves discomfort. But so is refusing to heal. And over time, refusing to heal is always more painful.” – Resmaa Menakem
    • “Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.” – Michelle Rosenthal
    • “Now, every time I witness a strong person, I want to know: What darkness did you conquer in your story? Mountains don’t rise without earthquakes.” – Katherine Mackenett
    • “Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet become something beautiful.” – Unknown

One story that has particularly affected me is the story of a German Pastor by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stood up to the Nazi’s evil persecution of the Jews (even though he was not a Jew!), and it cost him His life. He was sent to a concentration camp, where he was executed for being an agitator. He is quoted as having said: “We know much too little in the church today about the peculiar blessing of bearing (suffering). Bearing, not shaking off; bearing, but not collapsing either; bearing as Christ bore the cross, remaining underneath, and there beneath it — to find Christ.” Few of us will seek out suffering as a consequence of what we believe, but Bonhoeffer did.

The point is, even intense suffering can have a positive impact on us, IF we choose not to let it defeat us (Check out my blog on being strong and courageous). When people suffer together, they often help each other get through the trauma. Even evil people know this. Benito Mussolini (who is said to have inspired Hitler) is quoted as saying, “Religion is man-made to assist in controlling the weak-minded individuals because during times of atrocity and despair they feel strength in numbers.”[2] Sad, coming from someone like him, but there is truth in what he said. Many attested that they survived the Holocaust only because of the support of their fellow sufferers.

Lessons Learned from “Unbearable” Suffering

When we focus only on what our suffering takes away, we lose the blessing of what it leaves.

The Apostle James wrote:  “² My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, ³ for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure.”   James 1:2-3 (GNT)

Why would an all-powerful, good, and loving God ALLOW HIS PEOPLE to suffer?

Herein lies the crux of the question: Does God allow us to suffer? The trap behind this question is the false assumption that God would eliminate all suffering if He wanted to. Since He does not, God cannot be good, or He lacks the power. The problem with that logic is a lack of understanding about what the Bible teaches on this subject. God has a plan for us. If we fail to understand that plan, it is not God’s fault. Knowledge is not only power – it is comfort! But the comfort only comes to those who take the time to understand God’s plan.

In Genesis, we learned that Adam and Eve were placed in a world without suffering, yet they wanted more than what God had given them. They chose to disobey God’s instruction and eat from the Tree of Knowledge because Satan lied and said, “God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!” (Genesis 3:5 NCV) Their sin was in not trusting God, and (worse) wanting to be equal to Him. If they had not eaten from that tree, their knowledge of the world would have been limited to God alone, and they would have remained in their bubble. By their act of rebellion (which God knew they would do), they became exposed to a world filled with greed, hate, evil, disease, suffering, and death – none of which is part of God’s character. Instead, the source of all those horrible things comes from a fallen angel, Satan, who creates the bad things of this world and gets us to blame God for them. Satan constantly exercises all his power, cunning, and evil to tempt people away from trusting in the God who loves them. Satan thinks this plan is clever, but God has a better plan.

It is hard for some to understand God’s plan of allowing Adam and Eve to go down this path. Yet God knew He had to give us the free will to choose to leave Him and to come back to Him (or not). Richard Bach is credited with the quote, “If you love something, set it free. If it returns to you it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” God knew we would return – it would just take a while because we always were, and always will be His. Genesis sets the stage by showing that making bad choices has consequences. Every good parent fears that their children will make a wrong choice, so they do all they can to prepare them, train them, and show them what to do to minimize their suffering and learn from it. God is no different. That is why He gave us the Book of Job (among others) to explain His position on suffering and free choice.

It starts out with Satan coming to God and having a discussion about a man called Job.  A man who was described in the very first verse as “a truly good person, who respected God and refused to do evil.” (Job 1:1 CEV) Satan argued that Job was special. He said to God:

 “Job honors God for a good reason. ¹⁰ You have put a wall around him, his family, and everything he owns. You have blessed the things he has done… ¹¹ But reach out your hand and destroy everything he has, and he will curse you to your face.” Job 1:9-11 NCV

Then God responds: “All right, then. Everything Job has is in your power, but you must not touch Job himself.” Job 1:12 NCV  Don’t read this wrong! God is not allowing Satan to do something Satan didn’t already have the right to do! Read on.

There are several keys here you don’t want to miss:

• In essence, Satan’s argument is: Job has only seen the good in the world. He has led a blessed life, never having been exposed to hardship, suffering, or struggle. Exactly the condition of Adam and Eve in the Garden! Satan’s position is that Job is good simply because he has never seen hardship (bad). We don’t know why Job led a “blessed” life, but it wasn’t because he was protected by God. I think Satan was just playing with Job so he could test him later in life. And, based on what happened in the Garden, Satan didn’t have to ask God for permission to “destroy” Job. The story of Job is written to help us understand the relationship between humanity, God, and Satan regarding suffering. In the end, God will make it clear as to who is in charge!
• It wasn’t God who “destroy(ed)” Job; He put Job into Satan’s hands because of what happened in the Garden, and Satan did all the work of destroying Job (as he does with all of us).
• God declares that “Everything Job has is in your (Satan’s) power.” That should not surprise us as Christians because in 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NCV), Paul tells us, “The devil who rules this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe.” When Adam and Eve made their fateful decision, they relinquished the authority granted them by God to Satan. God had said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26 NCV) After they sinned, Satan inherited these rights to become the ruler of this world and have dominion over it.
• Under Satan’s rule, there is no discrimination as to who will suffer. Everyone is fair game!

Ever since then, Satan has worked diligently to blind “the minds of those who do not believe.” As Genesis tells us, God’s punishment for man’s disobedience was “the ground will be under a curse because… As long as you live, you will have to struggle to grow enough food.” to the woman He said, “You will suffer terribly when you give birth;” and to both He said, “you were made out of soil, and you will once again turn into soil (thus, they would die vs. live forever).” Genesis 3:17 & 19 (CEV) That is the burden God laid on humanity. He caused us to have to work hard for what we have and then to die. If you think about it, that was a very good decision because our struggle to survive is what causes us to test ourselves, plan, set goals, and (as a result) learn and grow. Satan added the component of suffering because he knew we would blame God for it, and that would drive a wedge between God and us. The book of Job is a perfect example of the value of struggle vs. the fallacy of who causes our suffering. Throughout much of the book, both Job and his three friends blame God for Job’s suffering. THIS is where we all go wrong! God does not allow suffering; He allows a series of choices to play out towards an outcome that only He fully understands. ALL things are truly under His control, and what we see is only a small portion of the full picture. Allow me to illustrate how this works in Job.

In addition to the overt blame heaped on God throughout the book, I noticed an interesting quirk in various Bible translations that could shape a reader’s impression about who is responsible for our suffering. In Job 1:12, most modern translations agree that God puts Job’s fate in Satan’s hands. Yet, in Job 2:3, many of the popular translations (like the New King James Version and the New International Version) have God saying to Satan that “you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.” (NKJV) This contradicts what was said in Job 1:12, where God gave Satan power over Job (a power that we have already shown was given to Satan back in the Garden). I think there is a better explanation offered in the Good News Translation (GNT), where God says to Satan, “You persuaded me to let you attack him for no reason at all.” Since there is no way Satan would ever incite God to do anything, I believe that the NKJV and NIV versions are misleading. At the beginning of Job, Satan accuses God of protecting Job, so the idea of Satan persuading God to test Job by allowing Satan to attack him offers a view that is more consistent with what the whole Bible teaches. God may occasionally favor certain people, but Satan is the official accuser/tormentor. Yes, there are times when God will act with “righteous anger,” but that is completely different from a uniform policy of causing His people to suffer. When God punishes someone, like Pharaoh, the recipient of His wrath usually knows God is behind their suffering!

Since the Garden of Eden, God’s curse has made life difficult for us, and that difficulty ends in death. Satan exacerbates this curse by doing anything and everything he can to make our lives worse and persuade us to “curse God and die.” (Job 2:9 NCV) His universal goal is to achieve our eternal separation from God. Causing us to suffer is one of his more powerful tools. But, for those who persevere, suffering only strengthens us! (And, simultaneously, by doing so, we heap hot coals on Satan’s head)! Let’s finish our look at Job and see how this applies to all of us.

At the beginning of the story, it says, “² Job had seven sons and three daughters. ³ He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys. He also had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.” Job 1:2-3 (NCV). Soon after the meeting between God and Satan:

•  Job lost all his wealth.
• All his servants were killed.
• All his sons and daughters were killed.
• He developed painful sores all over his body.
• His three best friends tell him it is all his fault.
• Interestingly, Satan did not take the life of Job’s wife. He allowed her to live because (she too) told Job that it “was all God’s fault!”

As a result, several times in the book, Job exclaims, “I hate my life!” In Job 10:1, he says to God,  “I hate my life!” so I will complain without holding back.” (Job 10:1 NCV) He goes on to say, “Tell me what you have against me? ³ Does it make you happy to trouble me? Don’t you care about me?” (Job 10:2-3 NCV)  Job, like so many of us, blames God for his troubles and claims that God is not caring for him. It gets worse. Job asks, “Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?” (Job 13:24 ESV) Yet, in the depth of his agony, Job cries out, “For I know that my Redeemer lives!” (Job 19:25 ESV) Why? Because in Job 16:19 (ESV), Job says, “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high.” Many see this “witness” as being Jesus, and He is advocating for Job! The dynamic tension played out in Job is that Jesus is our advocate/redeemer, and Satan is our accuser/tormentor!  The book spends 37 chapters debating the cause of Job’s suffering before God speaks. I love how the Contemporary English Version translates Job 38:2 when God asks, “Why do you talk so much when you know so little?”  In Job 40:1-2 (CEV), it says, “¹ I am the Lord All-Powerful, ² but you have argued that I am wrong.” God never explains Himself to Job, nor does He offer any explanation for Job’s suffering.  He simply states that He is God and He knows what He is doing. Isn’t that the same argument many good parents use with their kids – that they know what they are doing, and their kids don’t?  Our role is to trust Him to always know what is best for us in the long run (not just in this life, but for eternity). In the end, God restored to Job more than what he had lost. No, he did not get his children back, but he could take comfort in knowing he would see them again in heaven. Meanwhile, the story of Job has helped countless people gain a better understanding of how God works (even though some nuances are sometimes missed). 

Why would an all-powerful, GOOD, and LOVING GOD allow His people to suffer?

Despite all the above, it is still hard for some to see a “good and loving God” simply watching passively in the midst of humanity’s suffering. So, I’ll ask once more, would it have been better for God to have kept us in the bubble of the Garden of Eden and protected us from an evil and destructive Satan? I think anyone who has ever been a parent can understand God’s dilemma. How can God prepare His creation to be the best they can be without exposing them to struggle, suffering, evil, and loss? There are two concepts at work here that, if not fully understood, will lead to a poor conclusion:

• First, there is the concept of Balance. Balance simply says that one cannot appreciate what is good until one has experienced what is bad.
• Second, there is the concept of Protection vs. Preparation. Any good parent knows that they cannot protect their children from all the evils of the world, but they can prepare them for when they come. Where most of us miss out is in not seeing/believing that God’s preparation is for what happens beyond this life, not just this life. Our good and loving God is preparing us for eternity – a place that none of us has any idea of what awaits us there, much less how to prepare for it.

God is a master at applying these concepts in a way that is loving and uniquely personalized to us! He will not test us in this life beyond that which we are able! And He will see us through the hard times and help us get the most out of them. God is the ultimate good and loving parent who appreciates what we need to know and how we need to acquire the knowledge to become the very best version of ourselves! We need to trust Him!

Why would an ALL-POWERFUL, good, and loving God allow His people to suffer?

This last part of the question is the easiest one to answer. Only an all-powerful God could conduct this orchestra and have it result in a joyful noise! If we could just see how it all ends (as God does), the symphony He is conducting would sound so much better.  In my blog, “The Greatest Psalm“, I pointed out that God’s plan for us started in the womb, where He knitted us together specifically into the unique person we are – someone specially equipped by God for the ordeals we would face.  As life progresses, the challenges we encounter hopefully reveal God’s work and confirm His wisdom. God watches over every move Satan makes to steal us from Him! AND (here’s where the delicate part comes in), God does all this in a way that respects and does not violate our ability to make a free-will choice either FOR God, or AGAINST Him! Nothing short of an all-powerful God is required to pull off that feat!!! Can I hear an “AMEN!”

Like what you read? Don’t miss the next edition! Subscribe to my posts.

 

[1]     All quotes sourced from the site: https://www.ybgr.org/its-survival-13-quotes-on-trauma-and-healing/

[2]     https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1370160?ref=strength-in-numbers[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]