Suffering... has God abandon us?

[5] Thus says the Lord: 

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. (I.e. "...who by their ⁴unrighteousness suppresses the truth..." - Rom 1:18) 

[6] He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 

[7] “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 

[8]  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” 

[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jer 17:5-9 ESV 

Why do pain and suffering remain? 

Suffering is the natural result of our ongoing disconnect from God. 

Our disconnect is due to our ongoing distrust of Him. 

Pain remains to reveal and expose the depth of our rebellion toward God. It is the fruit of our rebellious distrust of Him. 

Why does suffering remain? So we might see the need to have our rebellious distrust purged. 

Why? So we might turn back to God who created us in His image - i.e. repent - in order that we might find true life in Him and more fully partake of His love as He designed us to. 

We come into this world in a state of rebellious distrust and absent our original connection with ¹God. God seeks to restore this connection so we might be in relationship with Him as we were created to be. 

Because God is love and therefore life itself - and we are in His image i.e. created to receive and give love - His absence - due to our rebellious distrust of God - creates an emptiness we desperately seek to fill. We seek to fill it with anything other than Him who alone can fill us. We look to anything we have access to or can get our hands on to fill the void. In short we trust in ourselves to fill the void instead of God  - "... we make flesh our strength..." 

Pain is such a common part of life we rarely consider it exists because of ²God's absence, much less because of our rebellious distrust of Him. So we slog along in our current rebellion and try to make the best of things. 

We rarely consider how deeply we distrust God and how this impacts everything we do. ³We refuse to see that we - and everything else - depends on God our Creator for our very breath and existence. Suggesting this is our true condition is mocked and ridiculed. Accepting this is fiercely resisted and denied individually and collectively. 

Occasionally our pain and suffering become so acute that we see and acknowledge our true condition and turn back to Him in total trust. 

Life is an ongoing journey through the  wilderness of this broken world to test whether we will continue to choose rebellious independence from God - as Adam and Eve did - or unconditional trust in God - as Christ displayed while on earth. 

Does suffering mean that God has abandoned us? Quite the opposite. Suffering exists so that we might recognize we are not created to be our own God and return to Him—who is Love itself and the Source of love, life, and all things—and that our struggles are the means by which we grow deep roots into Him. 

Everytime we experience the loss of something we look to for life - wealth, fame, natural gifts or talents, our health etc. - it's an opportunity to turn to Him who alone IS  life. 

He sent Christ as proof of His desire to pour out His love on you. He did for you what you can not do - trust God without conditions - and offers to credit you with His righteousness. Will you trust Him?

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FOOTNOTES: 

¹in whose  image we were created 

²if we acknowledge God at all it is to blame Him for our pain instead of acknowledging our rebellious distrust which results in His absence. 

³ I'm referring to our objective dependence not a conscious (subjective) dependence. Everything that exists is because God brought it into existence. This is the objective reality of our world and our existence. Our subjective denial of this is our problem. 

⁴ What is unrighteousness - ἀδικίᾳ (adikia)? - sometimes translated wickedness - Where does it come from? It is the fruit of our rebellious distrust of God that results in... 

wickedness 

Strong's 93: 

Injustice, unrighteousness, hurt. 

From adikos; injustice; morally, wrongfulness.