Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. When Christians describe this truth about God, they call God the Trinity. This aspect of God can be difficult to understand and is impossible to fully comprehend, but it is both true and reasonable.
Any loving parent will tell you that sacrificing your own life is not the worst type of suffering. Parents would much rather sacrifice themselves if it spared their children. In this sense, God not only sacrificed Himself in the person of Jesus, but He accepted the deeper pain of sacrificing His beloved child. If God is for us, who can ever be against us? God cares when people suffer in this life. The Bible makes this clear. King David was the second king of Israel.
David was well acquainted with suffering. Before becoming king, he spent long periods of time on the run because the first king of Israel, Saul, was trying to kill him. He rescues them from all their troubles. They frequently contain his pleas to God for deliverance from suffering.
Psalm 13 is a great example of this:. How long will You look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
But I trust in Your unfailing love. I will rejoice because You have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because He is good to me. We can also see how much God cares for our suffering in John Even though He was about to raise Lazarus back to life, He became very emotional when He saw their grief. This simple statement, famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible, is profound. Jesus did not tell the people to stop crying.
He did not say there was no need to mourn because He was about to raise Lazarus. He paused and wept with them. God knows that one day He will eliminate all suffering. But rather than tell us to stop grieving because our suffering will end, He grieves with us for His suffering people and His broken world. We see this in the description of the first time Jesus performs a miracle in John Jesus was at a wedding, and the host ran out of wine.
This is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Instead, Jesus used His divine power to change ordinary water into excellent wine for the guests.
By doing this, Jesus saved the host from social embarrassment and shame. Though God will not always take away problems and hardships, we see from this miracle that He cares about the details of our lives. Not only does God care and empathize with us in our suffering, but He can also bring good out of it. God is the master of redeeming bad situations. In times of deep, personal pain, those who have gone through a similar experience and can offer empathy in the moment and hope for the future are often the best source of comfort.
God knows exactly when to bring those people into your life and remind you whom you should reach out to. If you have experienced the pain of depression , struggled with infertility or battled addiction , you know that talking to someone who has been there helps you feel heard and not alone. Even a stranger who has walked the path before you can offer something that a friend who is sympathetic but has no personal experience cannot.
No matter how bad a situation is, God can still bring good out of it. We see this in the story of Joseph in Genesis Once there, Joseph suffered more misfortunes, including being imprisoned for a crime He did not commit. But God intervened, and Joseph was eventually elevated to a powerful position. He ended up saving the whole region, including his family, from a terrible famine.
After his brothers came to Egypt seeking food during the famine, Joseph revealed himself to them, and the family was reunited. God used something that seems purely evil — people selling their brother into slavery — to save countless lives.
Only a God who is truly good could bring good out of something truly bad. However, just because God uses something for good, that does not mean that He caused the suffering.
Natural disasters, death, murder, depression, betrayal and injustice are not good. They do not come from God. Ultimately, God will remove these things when He establishes a new and perfect world where we can live with Him for eternity. Find out how God can rescue anyone from the dark forces at work in the world. Even when God brings good things out of bad, suffering is still painful.
God is not afraid of your questions, your sadness or your anger. He can handle your thoughts and feelings. God wants you to pour out your heart to Him. He is your loving Father, ready to embrace you right where you are. If you do not yet have a relationship with God, He wants you to turn to Him. Jesus suffered so that you could have forgiveness, hope and an eternity free of pain and suffering.
Find out how you can begin a relationship with God. In the Bible, God makes promises to all who turn to Him. So, if you are going through something difficult or painful, turn to God in prayer. Ask Him to give you His peace and take away your anxiety and worry. You can trust God because He cares for you. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. When you suffer, especially over a long time, it can feel as though the time when you should have been living a normal life is being stolen from you.
If you look at moments like this as having no purpose, it will add to your sense of suffering. But instead, you can invite God to use your suffering to bring something good out of the bad.
Seeing God at work in suffering can bring you joy and hope amid the pain and hardship. Sometimes, God uses suffering to bring you closer to Him. He can also use it to increase your faith or refine your character. Often, He uses it to increase your compassion and ability to care for others who are suffering — both those suffering generally and those suffering in similar ways to you. When God comforts you in your suffering, you will be able to comfort others in the same way.
Humanity, as a result of the Fall, has been separated from God. Nature is not always kind to humans, and the animal world can also be their enemy.
There is conflict between humans. None of these conditions were true before the Fall. Any solution that might be given to the problems humankind faces must take into consideration that the world as it stands now is not normal. Although evil is here and it is real, it is also temporary. Evil will eventually be destroyed. This is the hope that the believer has. There is a new world coming in which there will be no more tears or pain because all things will be made new see Revelation Paradise lost will become paradise regained.
God will right every wrong and put away evil once and for all, in his time. Christians have justification for fighting evil, immorality, and corruption. The world was not designed with evil in mind, and believers have a real basis for fighting social ills.
They are not following the belief that whatever is, is right. God does not desire evil, nor does he ever condone it. He hates evil, and Christians also are not only to despise evil but obligated to do something about it. Even though sin is real, it is not something that believers accept as the way things ought to be. By identifying with Jesus, believers have a duty to call wrong things wrong and to speak out when evil is overtaking good.
The Christian is not fighting against God by fighting social problems. However, some people are still bothered that God even allows evil in the first place. They question his wisdom in giving humans a choice in the matter. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. This premise crumbles on every scriptural page. Time and again, we see those who are chosen and beloved by God suffering.
Indeed, our beliefs about God and suffering expose the fault lines between our natural assumptions and the biblical narrative.
The loving, omnipotent God of our imagination would move swiftly from creation to new creation, from the garden of Eden of Genesis to the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation.
But the God of the Bible charts a different course. He spreads his story out over thousands, even millions, of years and weaves in all the mess of human history—sin and sex and death and historical accident. And at the center of history, he stakes the cross of his beloved Son. It is not even Plan B.
It is the lynchpin around which all human history revolves, the central peg of reality itself. Indeed, it is the lens through which we visualize the narrative itself. But it is not the last word. The Lord of the Rings kindled my imagination as a child. My father read it to me. At a low point in the narrative, two central characters, Frodo and Sam, discuss where they are in the story. Sam recalls how he used to think that people in tales went looking for adventure because their lives were dull.
The hobbits do not know how their story will end. If it ended in this moment, it would be bleak and hopeless. But the story goes on. The story leaves Frodo scarred in body and mind. But it is a victory nonetheless, and one of which he and Sam hear songs sung and stories told.
Finally, changed and matured, Frodo goes with the elves to their land across the sea. The journey of all the central characters is through darkness—even death—to new life. But tap them on the shoulder at the darkest moment, and none would know where they are in the story. If you are in the midst of suffering now, hope of a happy ending may feel crass.
A friend who lost his first child to miscarriage shared with me that for a long time, he and his wife could only pray Psalm 88, which ends with darkness. But I think suffering is the greatest apologetic for Christianity there is. From an atheist perspective, not only is there no hope of a better end to the story; there is no ultimate story. There is nothing but blind, pitiless indifference [quoting from Richard Dawkins earlier in the chapter].
From a Christian perspective, there is not only hope for a better end; there is intimacy now with the One whose resurrected hands still bear the scars of the nails that pinned him to his cross. Suffering is not an embarrassment to the Christian faith. This perspective on suffering helps us understand the grand sweep of the biblical narrative. The beginning of the Bible paints a picture of Paradise: human beings in relationship with God and with each other, unstained by sin or suffering or death.
Our relationship with God is broken, which is why we feel lost and broken. Evil is real. We are surrounded by brokenness. Pain and suffering are an unavoidable part of our lives. God is not the source of evil, but he does allow us to experience suffering. There will come a time when God will punish evil and injustice.
In the meantime, we have a God that is familiar with our suffering. Jesus knew suffering. Pain and suffering is a result of living in a world broken by sin and evil, God will ultimately defeat evil, but in the meantime, God enters into our suffering. He suffers with us.
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