3 Reasons Why God Allows Suffering

"If God is good, why does He allow suffering?" If you're a Christian, I'm sure you've been asked this question a number of times. Here are 3 answers you can give:

FIRST: To draw us close to Him
God is just. If we have sinned, we need to be told about it. God is holy. He cannot tolerate sin. He must set things right. While sin must be punished, the sinner is corrected in a number of ways, one of which is through suffering (sad, but true). God uses suffering to lead us to a point where we can confess our sin, repent, seek His face and carry on - from now in His will.

God is like the shepherd who breaks the wandering sheep's leg so that the sheep cannot go astray. The shepherd then carries it on his shoulders. Whenever he calls out to his flock, this sheep is trained to recognize his voice. Over time, it will learn to walk with the shepherd and his flock without straying. We too need to be 'broken' (in spirit) to come close to our Shepherd (Jesus) and hear his voice and obey Him. A sprinkling of suffering can help us along the way.


SECOND: Glorify God
They say that character is not formed in a crisis - it is revealed in a crisis! When we carry on glorifying the Lord even in crises, we tell the world, the devil and our own flesh, whose children we are - God's! Like Job, we can proclaim: "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21) What better way to glorify Him than through our suffering?
An elder in our church - we shall call him John - has been undergoing kidney dialysis for the last several years. He would have died by now, but for God's grace. He's been from one hospital to another, taking treatment. He doesn't have a job - he cannot do one because of his health. Yet somehow, God has provided for his treatment. In spite of (actually because of) his immense suffering, he has been able to share the Gospel with nurses, doctors, fellow patients and others. Some of them might even have been saved. Now that's what I call turning adversity into opportunity! Could he have done this had he been fit and fine? Like Paul's "thorn in the flesh," God has used John's suffering to show the world that no one is a burden on Him - He can use the most helpless for His glory. "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)

THIRD: Train us to comfort others
When we have suffered, we know what pain is. We also know how we came out it - holding God's hand. When others suffer in similar ways, we can stand beside them and help join their hands with God's. Since we know where it hurts, we can comfort them with help from our Comforter - the Holy Spirit. "who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." (2 Cor 1:4)

God did not intend for us to suffer. Because of Adam and Eve's original sin, we have inherited a sin nature. This sin nature tempts us to commit sins. We tend to gravitate towards sinful acts rather than towards holy living. And sin leads to eventual death. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23) But God wants to restore us. So He uses suffering as one of His tools to correct us, strengthen us and draw us closer to Him. Through all our suffering, He is with us. "I will not leave you nor forsake you." (Joshua 1:5)

To learn more on overcoming life's challenges, read this post