By Ife J. Ibitayo
“Why does a good God allow bad pain?” Christians and unbelievers alike have grappled with this tough question for generations. Our human condition makes us struggle to find purpose in pain. That is why in a parable Jesus said, “The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word” (Matthew 13:20-21 NLT). We all have a Judas within us, and this traitor reveals himself when suffering arises.
Bad Pain
Judas cuts right to the heart of one of the main reasons we suffer. We are broken people living in a broken world with broken hearts. The English poet Alexander Pope once said, “To err is human.” The only consistent thing about us is that we’ll consistently fall short of other people’s standards, our own, and—above all—God’s.
Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And to fall short of God’s glorious standard is to be subject to His holy wrath. As Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were condemned to death, we all have also taken a bite, and we’re subject to a thousand little deaths each day. We chronically overeat and, and the doctor diagnoses us with diabetes. Our friend sleeps in, and we miss our final exam. A stranger is texting while they’re driving, and they swerve into our lane. We suffer bad consequences because we commit evil deeds.
Good God
Yet bad things in this life cannot nullify God’s good promises. “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11 KJV). This promise means that all suffering—caused by our sins, the sins of others, or unlucky happenstance—are part of God’s “expected end”–plan for our lives.
Romans 8:28, one of the most famous passages of scripture, reads, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Unfortunately, it is often divorced from the following verse: “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29 NLT).
Righteous People
The crucible of suffering, tuned to the right heat and extended for the correct duration, most quickly produces righteousness in us. Consider some of the most famous moral leaders of the past century–Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.). These leaders did not become the spiritual compasses of their respective nations in spite of the suffering they endured but because of it.
Mother Teresa ministered her whole life in some of the greatest squalor in the world. And she struggled for decades with an acute sense of abandonment by the same God she professed to serve. Martin Luther King Jr. was beaten by cops, bombed by segregationists, and terminated by a bullet to the brain.
The Son of God too was subject to a hard life. He had no place to call home (Matthew 8:20). He was rejected by his family and hometown (Mark 6:4) and persecuted by the religious leaders of His day (Matthew 12:23-24). And that’s not even mentioning the crux of Jesus’ greatest suffering here on this earth: the crucifixion.
If the Father found the crucible of suffering to be meaningful for His own perfect Son (Hebrews 5:8), how much more for His other imperfect children like us?
Conclusion
The world we live in is broken, and we are too. Bad news and bad circumstances may threaten to kill our faith. But if we can come to trust our heavenly Father “who works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11), our faith can grow along with our character.
“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
(James 1:2-4 NLT)