Lesson 8 — What About Suffering? Why Does God Allow Bad Things?
Updated: 9 hours ago
Why Does God Allow Bad Things in a Fallen World?
Key truth: Knowing Christ does not mean we will escape suffering in this present world. It means Christ is with us in it—and because He has overcome the world, suffering, evil, and death will not have the final word.
When we ask why does God allow bad things to happen, Scripture takes us beyond a simple answer and reveals the Fall, human sin, suffering, God’s justice, and our hope in Jesus Christ.
Taking the Hard Questions to Jesus
— One Lesson at a Time
Come sit with me awhile.
This is one of the hardest questions we will bring to Jesus:
❓If God is good, why do people suffer?
Why are children harmed?
Why are innocent lives devastated by murder and abuse?
Why do people become sick?
Why do those who love Jesus still grieve, grow old, suffer, and physically die?
I do not believe we should answer those questions carelessly.
Some suffering is so deep that a quick explanation can wound someone more than it helps them. Sometimes the first thing love should do is sit beside the person who is hurting, listen, pray, and weep.
Scripture tells us:
“Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and weep with them that weep.”— Romans 12:15 KJV
So before we try to explain suffering,
let’s remember that we are speaking about real people carrying real wounds.
And once again, our question becomes:
Lord, is it I?
Am I listening with compassion?
Am I trying to explain what I do not understand?
Am I judging someone’s suffering as Job’s friends judged him?
Am I offering an easy answer
when Christ is asking me to help carry someone’s burden?
“Bear ye one another’s burdens,
and so fulfil the law of Christ.”— Galatians 6:2 KJV
Jesus Never Promised a Life Without Suffering
Jesus did not hide the truth from His disciples.
He said:
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
— John 16:33 KJV
Notice what Jesus did
—and did not—say.
He did not say:
If you have enough faith, you will never suffer.
If you follow Me, nothing painful will ever happen to you.
If something terrible happens, it proves you did something to deserve it.
Jesus said:
“In the world ye shall have tribulation.”
But He also said:
“In me ye might have peace.”
And:
“I have overcome the world.”
The promise is not that we will escape every hardship.
The promise is Christ.
A person who belongs to Jesus may still be abused, murdered, betrayed, rejected, become sick, grow old, grieve, or physically die.
Christianity never promises us a protected earthly life.
It gives us something greater:
Life in Christ.
The presence of Christ.
The promise that Christ has overcome.
Does Every Sufferer Deserve What Happened?
No.
We need to say this carefully because Scripture says that all have sinned:
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
— Romans 3:23 KJV
But that does not mean a person who was abused caused or deserved the abuse.
It does not mean a murdered person deserved to be murdered.
It does not mean a suffering child is responsible for what an adult chose to do.
The guilt for abuse belongs to the abuser.
The guilt for murder belongs to the murderer.
God condemns evil, commands justice,
and holds people accountable for what they do.
When the disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth, they asked Jesus:
“Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”
— John 9:2 KJV
They assumed his suffering must have been caused by a particular sin committed by him or his parents.
Jesus answered:
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”— John 9:3 KJV
Jesus was not saying that the man and his parents had never sinned.
He was correcting the assumption that the blindness was punishment for a particular sin committed by either of them.
Job’s friends made a similar mistake.
They saw Job suffering and became convinced that he must have secretly earned it. Yet God later rebuked them because they had not spoken rightly about Him.
See Job 42:7.
We should be very careful about claiming to know why another person is suffering.
Sometimes we simply do not know.
Suffering Does Not Have Only One Immediate Cause
The Bible does not reduce every form of suffering to one simple explanation.
Sometimes people suffer because of the sinful choices of others.
Cain chose to murder Abel. God warned Cain beforehand, but Cain refused to listen. Abel’s murder was not evidence that Abel lacked faith. It revealed what Cain allowed sin to do through him.
Sometimes we suffer consequences from our own choices.
Sometimes suffering comes through persecution
because someone is following Christ.
Sometimes sickness, weakness, natural disasters, aging, and death remind us that the whole creation has been affected by the Fall.
Paul writes:
“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”— Romans 8:22–23 KJV
Notice that Paul includes believers.
“We ourselves groan within ourselves.”
Knowing Christ does not mean our present bodies have already escaped every effect of this fallen creation.
We still experience weakness.
We still grieve.
We still wait.
But we do not wait without hope.
Where Is God When We Suffer?
God did not answer human suffering by remaining far away from it.
Jesus entered it.
He experienced hunger, weariness, grief, rejection, betrayal, false accusation, physical pain, and death.
Jesus stood beside the grave of Lazarus and:
“Jesus wept.”— John 11:35 KJV
He knows sorrow.
Scripture says:
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
— Hebrews 4:15 KJV
Jesus was not watching human suffering from a safe distance.
He entered this fallen world.
He was betrayed by someone close to Him.
He was abandoned.
He was falsely accused.
He was beaten.
He was crucified by wicked hands.
And yet through the cross
—the greatest act of evil mankind ever committed against the sinless Son of God
—God accomplished our salvation.
That does not make the betrayal, cruelty, or murder good.
Evil remains evil.
But evil could not defeat God’s purpose.
Resurrection followed the cross.
Death did not get the final word.
Jesus did.
God Can Redeem What He Does Not Call Good
Joseph’s brothers hated him, sold him, and caused him terrible suffering.
Years later, Joseph told them:
“But as for you, ye thought evil against me;
but God meant it unto good…”— Genesis 50:20 KJV
Joseph did not call their actions good.
He said plainly:
“Ye thought evil against me.”
But their evil intentions were not powerful enough to prevent God from working.
That is an important distinction.
We do not have to call evil good in order to believe
God can redeem what evil has done.
We do not have to pretend something did not hurt.
We do not have to deny injustice.
We do not have to remain in danger to prove that we love or forgive someone.
Protecting someone from abuse, telling the truth, seeking help, and establishing necessary boundaries are not failures of faith.
Grace does not make wrong right.
Grace teaches, and gives us the opportunity to respond rightly through Christ.
God’s sovereignty does not mean that everything people do is something God approves.
It means human evil cannot overthrow God or prevent Him from accomplishing His final purpose.
God Is Near to the Brokenhearted
Sometimes the question is not merely:
Why did this happen?
It is:
Where is God while I am hurting?
Scripture answers:
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart;
and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”— Psalm 34:18 KJV
God’s nearness does not mean the pain is imaginary.
It means we are not abandoned in it.
Even when suffering becomes so deep that we do not know what to pray,
Scripture tells us:
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities:
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought…”
— Romans 8:26 KJV
There are moments when we may not have words.
But God is not absent because our words have failed.
The Spirit helps our infirmities.
Present Suffering Is Not the End of the Story
Paul writes:
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”— Romans 8:18 KJV
Paul was not speaking as someone who had lived an easy life.
He had been beaten, imprisoned, rejected, persecuted, endangered, and burdened.
So when he later called his suffering a “light affliction,”
he was not saying suffering feels light while we are carrying it.
He was comparing its temporary duration with the eternal glory Christ has promised.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
While we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal;
but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 KJV
The outward man may perish.
Scripture does not deny that reality.
But:
The inward man can be renewed day by day.
What we see now is temporal.
What God has promised is eternal.
Christian hope is not pretending suffering does not exist.
Hope looks directly at suffering
and still believes Jesus Christ has overcome the world.
What Do We Do When Someone Is Suffering?
We may not be able to explain every mystery,
but Christ can teach us how to respond.
We can listen.
We can weep with those who weep.
We can help carry burdens.
We can protect those who are in danger.
We can tell the truth about evil.
We can seek justice without becoming consumed by hatred.
We can pray.
We can remain present.
And we can point gently toward Jesus
without using Him as a quick answer that silences someone’s pain.
Sometimes the person who is suffering does not need a speech.
They need someone who will sit with them awhile.
Someone who will not blame them.
Someone who will not demand that they heal
according to another person’s schedule.
Someone who will remind them:
You have not been abandoned.
Jesus sees you.
Jesus knows suffering.
Jesus is near to the brokenhearted.
What happened to you does not have authority to write the final chapter
of your life.
Lord, Is It I?
Before I judge another person’s suffering, let me ask:
Lord, is it I?
Am I behaving like Job’s friends
—assuming I understand something only You can see?
Am I using Scripture to help carry someone’s burden,
or am I using it to avoid sitting with their pain?
Am I calling someone’s suffering a consequence when I do not know that?
Am I ignoring someone who needs protection
because helping them might cost me something?
Am I asking a wounded person to remain surrounded by turmoil
in order to prove that they are loving or forgiving?
Lord, teach me to see as You see.
Teach me to speak truth with love.
Teach me when to speak, when to listen, when to act, and when simply to remain beside someone who is hurting.
Our Hope Is Jesus
Scripture does not answer every individual “why” from where we are standing.
Job never saw everything the reader was permitted to see.
He learned to trust who God is even when he could not understand
what God was doing.
And perhaps that is where Christ meets us too.
Peace is not always found by understanding everything.
Peace is found in knowing Someone.
Jesus Christ.
He never promised that we would have no tribulation.
He promised that in Him we could have peace.
He did not tell us suffering was imaginary.
He told us:
“Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
The creation is still groaning.
We are still waiting for the redemption of our bodies.
But we wait with hope because the crucified Jesus rose again.
Suffering does not get the final word.
Abuse does not get the final word.
Murder does not get the final word.
Death does not get the final word.
Jesus does.
And that brings us naturally to our final lesson:
Next: Lesson 9 — What Is Eternal Life?
If Christians can still suffer and physically die,
what did Jesus mean when He promised eternal life?
Is eternal life merely living forever—or is it something that begins with knowing Him?
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”— John 17:3 KJV
Come sit with me awhile
as Christ continues teaching us through His Word.
I am learning too.
One lesson at a time.
One step at a time.
Keeping our eyes upon Jesus.
Thank you for sitting with me awhile.
Love in Christ,
Karen, a fellow learner
Hope in Today
Soli Deo Gloria!
To God be the glory!
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