Why Does God Allow Pain & Suffering | Finding Hope When We’re Hurting - ABOVE INSPIRATION. Shallom,
If you could ask God any one question and you knew He would give you an answer right now what would you ask Him? What would you ask? Well it may not be surprising but by far the number one questions that Americans ask is: 'Why does God allow pain and suffering in the world?' Does that surprise you? Didn't surprise me.
You know if you've never asked the question: 'Why is there suffering. Why is there pain in the world?' the chances are you will when it strikes you full force or it strikes a loved one full force. And you know what? It's gonna come. It's gonna come.
Jesus was honest. Jesus said 'you're gonna have suffering.' Jesus said this in John 16:33. He said, 'You will have suffering in this world.' You will but why? All I could do would be to look at you and give you a four word answer. I do not know.
I don't know. I don't know. I cannot stand in the shoes of God and give a complete answer to that question. I don't have the mind of God. I don't have the eyes of God.
First Corinthians 13 verse 12 says, 'Now we see things imperfectly like puzzling reflections in a mirror; but then we will see everything with perfect clarity." All I know now is partial and incomplete but then I will know everything completely just as God now knows me completely.
So if you ask me why do individual events of pain of suffering happen? Friends, honestly in this world you may not get a full answer, and frankly if you're going through something like that today. If you're going through a era of your life with a lot of suffering and a lot of pain then the last thing you really need is some theological treatise on pain and suffering. Because no amount of words are gonna be sufficient for you. It's always gonna sound trite when you're in the middle of suffering.
What you need is the very real presence of Jesus Christ in your life, but having said that and this is equally important. Even though we can't understand everything about why we suffer there are some things that we can know. Even though suffering is not good, God can use it to accomplish good.
Now you might hear that and you say, 'Well, no wait a second, hold on, let's not ... let's that's skim over that. I've gone through some horrific suffering in my life. I've gone through some awful pain in my life. And honestly I don't think that God even ... God can find any good to emerge from the suffering that I've gone through.'
Friends, if that's the way you feel today let me just remind you of one thing and that is that God is so powerful and so good that He was able to take the worst possible thing that could ever happen in the history of the universe which is deicide the death of the son of the God on a cross. He was able to take the worst thing that could ever happen and turn it into the best thing that has ever happened, which is the opening of heaven to all who follow Him.
So you have to say to yourself, 'If God can take the worst possible thing that could ever occur and turn it into the best possible thing that could ever occur, could He not take my pain and my suffering and cause good to emerge?' And the answer is of course He can, yes He can, and He will. He will. He would use your suffering perhaps to draw you into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him.
Ge may cause your suffering to point other people to salvation through Christ. He may use it to mold and to shape your character in ways that never could have been shaped, if you had not gone through that experience. There are a myriad number of ways that God can and He will, cause good to emerge from your suffering if you are committed to following Him.
We decide we decide whether we're gonna turn bitter or turn to God for peace and courage. We make that decision when tough times come we're gonna turn bitter are we gonna turn to God and receive peace and courage. We saw seen examples in our lives of how the same kind of suffering has a completely different effect on two different people.
Some people became come angry and bitter in and turn it inward, because of the suffering they've gone through. And yet somebody else can go through the same kind of suffering and they come closer to God, and closer to people, and more loving and more tender.
In other words someone can lose a child to a drunk driver and turn inward with rage and bitterness for the rest of their life, but someone else has a child lost to a drunk driver and they go out and they start mothers against drunk driving.
One philosopher said this to me. He said, 'Lee, I believe all suffering is at least potential good an opportunity for good.' He said, 'It's up to our free choice to actualize that potential.' He said, 'Not all of us benefit from suffering and learn from it, because it's up to us, It's up to our free will.'
So we make the choice. Are we gonna run away from God or we gonna run to God. So let me finish that quote that I started this message with.
Because I only quoted part of this verse John 16:33. I want to put it into context now. The entire verse says this, 'I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world but be courageous I have conquered the world.'
In other words He offers us in the midst of our suffering the two very things we need the most. He offers us peace for the present and courage for the future. How? Because He's conquered the world. Because through His own suffering and through His death, He has deprived the world of having ultimate power over you. Suffering does not have the last word anymore. Pain does not have the last word anymore. God has the last word. Jesus is the last word.
See, God's ultimate answer to suffering is not just an explanation, it is the incarnation. Suffering is a personal problem, therefore God sent a personal solution in Jesus Christ. God is not some distant and disinterested deity. He through Jesus Christ entered into our pain, enter into our suffering.
And Psalm 34 verse 18 says this, 'The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and He saves those who are crushed in spirit.'
This wise philosopher that I got to sit down with said this to me, at a time in my life when I was going through some tough times. He said, "Jesus is there in the lowest places of our lives. He said, 'Are you broken?' Jesus was broken like bread for you. Are you despised? Jesus was despised and rejected of men. You cry out that you can't take it anymore? Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Did someone betray you? Jesus was sold out for thirty pieces of silver. Are your tenderest relationships broken? Jesus loved and He was rejected. Do people turn from you? Well guess what. They hid their faces from Him like He was a leper. Does He descend into your deepest hell's? Yes He does."
In fact from a Nazi concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom wrote these words, 'No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still, He is deeper still. Every tear we shed becomes His tear.' And then the wise man said this to me, 'It's not like God just sympathizes with you like a close friend would. Any close friend if you're going through pain and suffering any close friend of yours gonna sit on the couch next to you and gonna put their arms around you and it's going to empathize and sympathize with you. That's true of any friend, but ...'
He said, 'If Jesus is in you. If you are His child, He is inside of you, and if He is inside of you, He is closer to you even than your closest friend. And therefore your sufferings because of His sufferings and your sorrow becomes His sorrow.'
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And so friends when tragedy strikes and it will or when pain comes into your life and you know it will, then you have a choice to make. Do I turn away from God and turn bitter or do I turn to God and find hope and peace and courage. Peace for the present courage for the future.
- Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. - (John 14:6).
- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. - (Philippians 4:13).
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