Children die. Hurricanes and tornadoes strip away homes and lives.  Marriages end.  Troubled men strafe a crowd with gunfire.  People lose their jobs and end up on the street.  Christians are imprisoned and executed for their faith.  Humanity cries out in pain.

Where is God in all this?  Why doesn’t He stop it?  Doesn’t God care?  Doesn’t He love us?

The answer?  God is there, waiting for us to trust Him and depend on Him.  He sees the eternal big picture, while we see an infinitesimal piece.  He cares deeply, and He loves us so much that He allowed His own Son, Jesus, to suffer excruciating pain for our sake.

Suffering exists because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, even though God told them the consequences would be death and separation from Him.  God gave them – and us – freedom to choose.  They chose rebellion – sin.  As a result, the world is not the way it should be.  If we look in the mirror, we can see that we’re not the way we ought to be either.

God could have obliterated mankind after Adam and Eve sinned.  He is holy and righteous and can’t turn a blind eye to sin.  Yet God took the initiative to offer us hope and remove the eternal consequences of that sin.  He offers us redemption and eternal life with Him in heaven.  How?  He sent His Son, Jesus, in human form to experience all the struggles, joys, temptations and pain that we experience and to suffer the punishment for all mankind’s sin by dying a horrible death on the cross.  When we believe in Jesus’ sacrifice and repent of our sins, we receive God’s grace and a pain-free eternity with Him.  Jesus’ resurrection provides us with assurance and hope.

But we still suffer here in our daily lives even after we accept Jesus.  The world is still tarnished by that first sin.

Don’t think that God is punishing you if you suffer.  Jesus already bore all our punishment.

Instead, God allows pain in your life the way a father allows a child to experience some pain so the child will mature and gain wisdom.  Pain for us is like manure for a garden – it stinks, but it helps us grow.  If we try to see what God is teaching us, if we embrace it, our character and behavior will transform.  Others will glimpse God’s grace and glory through how we handle our suffering.  Our intimacy with God, our trust and dependence on Him, will grow.

God also understands the big picture.  He doesn’t always heal or end our suffering because He knows all the ramifications of what can happen, and He knows whether that healing or end to suffering is in our best interest in the long run, from an eternal perspective.  That is one of the reasons we trust Him.

If the very worst happens to us here, in our present bodies on this earth, the very best is yet to come.  God promises us an eternal future with no pain, no disease, no strife, no mourning, no darkness.  We will have new, resurrection bodies, like Jesus.  As foretold by the prophet Isaiah, God has promised us “beauty for ashes.” (Isaiah 61:3)

The messages and articles below dive deeper into why there is suffering.