Don't be surprised by suffering

If God is good, why does He allow evil (pain and suffering)? This is the age-old question and the reason many give for why they don't trust God.

But could it be that God allows pain to humble us and help us see that life doesn't truly work - as God intends - without Him? Could the reason for pain and suffering be this simple and come with such loving intentions?

What most do not consider is pain and suffering are the eventual outcome and natural consequences of ¹arrogance i.e. the belief they can make life work as it should without the Creator of it.

But pain can also become the ²means by which God humbles us if we let it. Evil itself is bad but humility and whatever is needed to humble us and draw us closer to God is good, not bad (though often unpleasant). A seeming contradiction?

Our inability to find true and lasting life and love apart from God can direct us back to Him - but only if we turn from our arrogant and stubborn belief that we can obtain these on our own without Him. If we persist in our unbelief, the painful consequences of our rebellious distrust of God - i.e. the evil and harm it brings - are not His fault, but our choice. 

We often don't grasp the far-reaching significance or impact of our rebellious distrust of God i.e. how harmful and destructive it truly is, not just to others but ourselves as well.

The fact that we are surprised, put off, or offended by pain and suffering (evil) is proof of how little we understand the far-reaching impact and severe consequences of our distrust of God.

We should not be surprised by the suffering caused by evil. It is the natural outcome of believing we can make life work without God and trying to do so, when all the pain it causes tells us otherwise. 

Trying to make life work without God is a lie. Life only works as it was designed to i.e. when we are in perfect alignment and union with God our Creator - the source of life, love, and all things, in whose image we were created.

We all have the capacity to see far more than we can now see about God, ourselves, and life (such as the pain and suffering our unbelief causes). The only thing blocking us from seeing more clearly is our lack of humility - refusing to acknowledge our need for and dependence on God for all we have and are. 

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here.

The greater the evil the greater the opportunity for healing/

grace click here.

For a discussion on the key lesson from the book of Job, click here.

For a discussion on the value of paradox, click here.

For a discussion of how big is God click here

_________________________________

¹Even suicide is an act of arrogance. Someone ends their life because they believe it is not worth living. Yet they don't consider the foundational reason they are in despair is the absence of God i.e. their lack of trust in God and His wisdom and love in allowing pain (the organic and rightful consequences of unbelief) to continue.

²God is so wise, powerful, and good, that he uses evil for good. Only He can. But we will never see or understand this if we do not trust Him. 

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." Rom.11.33-36