Monday, 15 October 2007 00:00 | and posted in Q&A Corner
Well folks, if had a quick easy answer to this one, I would be a multi millionaire! For the record, I'm not. The only really honest answer I can give to this is that I don't know. But what I do know is my God and I trust him. I know that he does not have a character that likes inflicting pain or enjoys people's suffering.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this one over the years. Some people have given me brainy logical answers saying suffering is down to our own sinfulness. Or if God dramatically intervened in human suffering then we couldn't choose to believe in him anymore and we have to be free to choose. These answers do not satisfy me.
Logically, either God has the power to prevent suffering and doesn't (which shows he's not very loving), or he loves us and wants to stop suffering but is powerless to do anything.
Things aren't as simple as that though. The problem with logic like that is that it doesn't always apply to real life. The God I've gotten to know and have seen working in my own life is a God who loves each one of us so much that he was prepared to die on the cross because of that love. To say God doesn't love us - well, it just doesn't ring true.
So is God powerless then? Well, no! I mean, he created everything, we depend on him for every breath, and I've known people be healed - to say God doesn't have power, that doesn't stand up to the evidence either.
Logic says either God doesn't love us or isn't powerful - but experience of God says that just isn't the case. Sometimes cold hard logic just isn't enough.
So logically, I haven't a scoob why God would allow suffering. I do know though, that we will all go through suffering - guaranteed.
When I got married it was the happiest day of my life. However, there was a bitter edge to it; a very close family member wasn't able to come because he was in hospital fighting for his life. In the weeks leading up to the wedding we had three phone calls telling us we should prepare ourselves for the worst. We seriously considered postponing my wedding, but we felt that the family should have something positive to celebrate and decided to go ahead with it.
One of the hymns we sung at my wedding was really hard to sing. It is based around one of the psalms in the Bible and contains the lines: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, your rod and staff protect and comfort me." As a family, we had walked under the shadow of death during the weeks before - but even in the pain, the uncertainty, the questions about why this was happening, God did not leave us, and He did not leave my relative.
Sometimes it was hard to feel God's presence, sometimes I got angry with God, sometimes I felt so empty that I wondered if God had deserted us - but He was right there with us, even when I didn't feel it. God was there in the middle of our suffering and pain.
It was only later that I realised that God, maker of heaven and earth, knows suffering first hand. Through Jesus he has experienced pain, rejection, persecution, hunger and death. But more than that - Jesus has experienced what it feels like when circumstances, emotions and pain tell us God isn't there. He knows how it feels when events feel godless. As he died on a cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, Why have you left me?"* We shout out similar statements in times of suffering; Where are you God?
God will always be with you in your suffering. God might not prevent it - suffering is an unavoidable part of life for everyone - but he will be with you when it matters. He knows what it feels like. And He will carry you through.