We’re going to take a break from our Psalms series. I want to talk about suffering. We just observed and remembered the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks and as I remembered the victims and the devastation that was wrought that day, the loss and the toll; as I pondered the events I couldn’t help but ask God “why?” Of course, deep down, I know the answer to why there is suffering but many people may not. Why is there so much suffering in the world, and why does God allow it?
I felt impressed to look at those questions today.
First, we say that God is love (1 John 4:8). His government and His law are a reflection of His love. Jesus said “If you love Me keep My commandments,” John 14:15. In fact, the main outline of His law, which was posed by the lawyer right before the parable of the Good Samaritan was “‘you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
So if God is love and all-powerful, why does He allow suffering?
Remember, that God never wanted suffering to happen. He told Adam and Eve that they were to keep away from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, had they obeyed Him, there would never have been a transgression of His law. Thus sin would not exist. The wages of sin, like death, pain and, toil would not have to happen. Life in the garden would continue on in perfect and holy bliss.
However, God’s love is the original Fatherly love. He desired that Adam and Eve would obey Him but He couldn’t force them to obey. In His love, He gives us free choice. Whether we will obey Him or not, whether we would love Him or not. He gives us that choice, but He stated from the beginning, the pros and cons of obeying Him.
Jesus gives us an example of this fatherly love in Luke 15:11-32. “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to His father, ‘Father give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.”
This younger son couldn’t wait for his father to die! He wanted his inheritance and he wanted it now! The father, in his love he divided his livelihood to both his sons. Now the father must have known about his younger son’s lack of restraint. He must’ve known what would happen. But He couldn’t stop him. He had to allow him to learn the lesson. But the Father didn’t stop loving him. Verse 20 says that as the son was returning to his father, humiliated, tired, hungry, “his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.”
Even though this son had despised his father, had taken half of his father’s livelihood and was now coming back groveling for help, his father loved him.
I think this parable shows how suffering doesn’t discount God’s goodness and love. He loves us through the suffering, some of which we have heaped on ourselves. But suffering doesn’t show a lack of God’s love, but in the end, epitomizes it.
We’ve been looking at the Psalms for several weeks. We’ve seen how the majority of the Psalms we’ve looked at the psalmist is usually suffering! But they call out to God. They speak about His faithfulness, how He will eventually bring an end to all suffering and pain.
So why do bad things happen? It’s not because God wants it to happen, it’s because this world is now inherently evil as are the people in it. God can make an end to pain and suffering but He is waiting until it’s reached its full, when we can say that there is nothing good in the world, when we realize the sinfulness of sin, God will finally end it. The reason He hasn’t ended it now is found in 2 Peter 3:9. Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
God is wanting everyone to have the opportunity to be saved. And He’s not without pain. As He waits, He must suffer long with us. And He has seen all suffering, all the things that we cannot see. So God has suffered more than anyone. But it’s His love for us that He suffers. And He patiently, lovingly waits and calls us back to Him.
When we can’t comprehend the suffering in the world (and that’s okay, we don’t need to comprehend it) we can remember t’s not just us who asks God “why.” Jesus Himself asked God why, in Matthew 27:46. He asked, weeping and in tears as He hung on the cross, ‘“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthanim,’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”
And you know, I don’t know that Jesus got an answer. I don’t know that He was comforted in His moment of death. However, He trusted in God, and though He deep down knew that He had to bear the wrath of God on behalf of all sinners, to take our place, out of love, He still felt the desire to ask God “why?” But He trusted. And when He rose, on the third day, He rose victorious over sin and death.
We can have comfort that Jesus asked why. That He has gone through darkest times and now is there with us in our dark times, comforting us. Promising us victory in the end.
I encourage you to look at the psalms that we’ve studied so far. In them, we find that our refuge and strength is in God. Under His wings, we will safely abide. And in the Book of Revelation, we have the promise that soon God will “wipe away every tear from our eyes.” Revelation 21:4.