Why Does God Permit Suffering?

In my final sermon at Bald Bill Community Church there were three essential truths I wanted our congregants to always remember. (1) God loves you. (2) We were created to honor Him. (3) Answers this troublesome question, “Why does God permit suffering?”

No one lives without problems: not enough money, broken hearts/relationships, disappointment, loneliness, sickness, and fear.   

This is the answer-- God allows suffering as part of His plan for our sanctification. He is continually molding us into better people.

Paul wrote this:

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.” (2 Cor 4:17-20)  

We rarely see a purpose for our suffering when we are lost by the side of the road, the car has broken down, we’re down to our last package of Twinkies, and we’re out of toilet paper.

Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God explained,

“I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.
        God’s Decree:
For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.” (Isaiah 55: 8-9)

Our difficulties aren’t random. They don’t happen because God (who was supposed to be watching over us) looked away, blinked, or fell asleep. We serve a sovereign God who never sleeps and always has a plan for our lives. Sometimes suffering is part of that plan.

When I forget that God has preeminence over of every molecule of my body, every circumstance in my life, all governments and their leaders, and the natural world with its shocking catastrophes, I go to the book of Colossians.

 ^“We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.

“He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.” (Col 1:15-19)

God rarely lifts your darkness in a single moment, but you should trust Him anyway. At times He will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not. He will appear like an unloving Father, but He loves you. He will appear like an unjust judge, but He extremely fair.

Never forget that God is behind all things. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless He wills it or permits it. Therefore, rest in perfect confidence that all your circumstances are purposeful. All.