The faithfulness of God does not guarantee that a person's life will be free from trouble, pain, and suffering. In fact, Jesus taught that we are to expect difficulty and challenge in this life (Jn 16:1-4, 33). The Bible provides a large number of examples of godly people who suffered greatly for a variety of reasons. Among those who suffered were major figures such as Joseph. King David, Job, the prophet Jeremiah and the apostle Paul. Jesus Christ, of course, went through the greatest suffering of all in order to accomplish God's greatest good, which is to make spiritual salvation available to all (Isa 53; 1Pe 3:18)

Job 2:7-8

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

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The Questions And Reality Of Suffering

"How can a loving God allow suffering and evil to continue?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" "Where is God when tragedy strikes?" Though the questions take many forms, they all represent a struggle to understand God's supreme power and goodness. The nature of God stands in contrast to the pain and misery that is so widespread in the world He created. It is difficult to understand how the all-loving, all-powerful God can allow such bad things to happen. Some look at tragedy and decide that even if God is all-loving, He must not be all-powerful or he would not allow suffering. Others think just the opposite when they see the innocent or the weak or the good suffer. They decide that if God is all-powerful and still allows the innocent to suffer, then He must not be loving. However, love does not cancel out suffering. Through the ages, man has wrestled with these issues. But perhaps our confusion comes because we are asking the wrong questions. Because humankind has rebelled against God and chosen its own way, sin and evil have taken hold in the world and turned things upside down. This was not God's plan from the start. For this reason, disorder and destruction have become "normal" in our rebellious world. The fact that any good exists at all, or can even come out of suffering, is proof of God's love and patience toward a world that continues to defy and rebel against Him.

The Cause And Origin Of Suffering

It is a fact that everyone will face trouble. people look, act, and think differently, but suffering is a universal language. Each of us knows the sting of hurt and heartache, disease and disaster, trials and tragedy. While we will never understand all of the reasons for each trouble, it is important to understand some general reasons why God allows suffering. Noy understanding this issue is one of the main reasons many people find it hard to believe in God and accept Christ. At times, we may find some who believe in God but blame Him-directly or indirectly-for trouble in the world.

However, those who blame God for not preventing trouble do not fully understand the origin of evil or while God allows suffering. God's Word clearly describes how evil entered the world and who is responsible. God presented a choice to humankind; they chose to abuse the blessing and freedom God offered (Ge 1:26-31; 2:15-22). Everything God originally created was good-including Adam and Eve. As part of God's perfect creation, He gave humans free will the ability to choose. But when they use their free will to ignore God's protective command, their choice to rebel against Him opened the door for evil to infect the entire human race (Ro 5:12). Sin and evil are natural results of human choice. The fact is that human choices, not God's choices, allo for suffering in the world.

Many people might say, "But surely God can simply remove evil and suffering!" If He did, He would have to eliminate all human imperfection and force us to live completely without sinning. But that will cancel out the free will He gave us to follow or reject Him. God wants us to choose to love and follow Him. Christianity is not about God making us choose Him, nor changing the natural results of our choices. Instead, Christian faith brings people to a point of willingly and continually choosing good over evil, no matter how difficult the situation. God often allows us to go through hard times so we can grow and learn to trust him for strenght to overcome other difficulties. We must remember that Job is described as blameless (Job 1:8; 2:3), yet God allowed satan to bring tragedy into Job's life to show Job's true love and dependence on God-no matter how difficult the circumstance.

Thanks for reading. Stay tune for the next part of The Suffering Of The Righteous which is "Reasons The Righteous Suffer"

God bless you.
Shalom.

[NIV Study Edition Bible]

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