“How can a good God who loves me allow me to feel so depressed and despairing? Why would He allow me to experience such terrible pain and suffering?
A Hard Question
Have you ever heard someone ask a question like this? Have you ever asked a question like this yourself? I’d venture that most of us have at least thought something like this even if we never put words to it. When we face difficulty and pain, our first inclination is typically “Why God?” Why do bad things happen to good people? Simply put, there are no “good people.” But we can take it a little further than this. This question has often come on the lips of Christians who know God and understand the gospel. They know that they aren’t a good person but a sinner saved by God’s grace. So, let’s take the question a bit further, “Why does God allow suffering, difficulty, and grief for His children?” That might be an even harder question. Over the next several months in this blog, I want to tackle this question and deal with it from several angles. Let’s start with clearing the air and getting to the root of the problem.
A Faulty Assumption
We must acknowledge at the beginning that there is a faulty assumption on display in this question. We could put this assumption like this: God’s love exempts me from suffering and difficulty. This assumption is clearly false when we consider the lives of people like Joseph, Job, and Jesus. These are clearly people intimately and truly loved by God but who experience intense suffering and pain through no direct fault of their own. When we begin to think that God’s love means that I won’t suffer, we must confront that lie with the truth.
To put it another way, the faulty assumption here is the very thing that animates and motivates the prosperity gospel. The prosperity preacher essentially argues that God loves you and wants your best life here and now. There’s even a book with such a title. These preachers assert that this world is the primary place of God’s blessing, and if you aren’t having those blessings, then there is something wrong with your faith. We all know this to be heresy. The Bible teaches that the primary place of God’s blessing is in the future in a new heaven and a new earth wherein God will lavish upon us all the bounty of His riches in grace (Eph. 2:1-7). Of course, asserting that future blessings are the primary blessings that we will experience doesn’t mean that we don’t have many blessings now. We often do, but these are merely hors d’oeuvres that give us a taste of what is to come. Your best life isn’t now but in the age to come.
Peace and Pain Often Coexist
“Here’s the principle of life on this earth before glory: Peace and pain often coexist.”
Here’s the principle of life on this earth before glory: Peace and pain often coexist. This reality is not an argument against God’s love but rather for it. God could’ve left us in our mess. He would’ve been just to let us perish in our sin. Instead, God sent His own Son to bear our guilt and die our death so that we might have new, abundant, eternal life. The life of Jesus and the promise of the gospel tells us that suffering and pain are the result of living in a world broken by sin. It also gives us hope by proclaiming that God has made a way to deal with sin and bring new life. God is working towards eliminating our pain and bringing us to a land where there are no more sufferings (Rev. 21:1-5). God’s love for us is not in question (John 3:16; Gal. 2:20). God’s cares for His children in times of need (1 Peter 5:6-7; Heb. 4:15-16). We must remind ourselves that these things are true even when we don’t feel them to be true. Our feelings often lie to us, but God’s Word never does. Tell yourself these truths until you feel them, and then tell them to yourself again.
Knowing Why Won’t Make You Feel Better
“Asking “why” is a theological question while hoping for an emotional payoff.”
But of course, that brings us to the crux of the question, if God loves me why do I experience pain and suffering? Couldn’t God just free me from all of this? I suppose that God could do that, but He doesn’t do that—at least not usually. This question of why is important, but knowing the answer (even partially) will not make me feel better. As counselor Ed Welch says, “theological questions are often personal questions in disguise; they are about the burdens on a person’s heart.” Asking “why” is a theological question while hoping for an emotional payoff. So, when we ask “why” we must also ask “what” and “whom.” Why God does something may be beyond our comprehension, but what He has done and Whom He has sent are not in question. God has made a way for us to find everlasting life. He has sent His Son to be with us and then sent His Spirit to be in us. The real comfort in times of difficulty doesn’t come from knowing the answer to the “why” but in trusting the “what” and the “whom.” Presence, prayer, and purpose solve the problems of despair and depression. What we need in these moments is to know that God never leaves us or forsakes us. In other words, the paramount proof of God’s love is the Cross. When we don’t feel the impact of these truths, we must pray until we do. By His grace, God often provides other people to mediate His comfort to us and remind us of His purpose if we’ll just look around to see.
