~Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Death and suffering were not God’s intentions from the beginning. It is not God that causes the suffering. God created (Genesis 1:1) the heavens, the earth and everything in and on the earth – they were made perfectly by a perfect God. When He saw all that He had created, He said that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). Man had everything he needed in the Garden of Eden. There was no death or sickness. However, man wanted more and by choice, man sinned. God didn’t keep it a secret as to what would happen if Adam and Eve disobeyed – He didn’t generalize either – He was very specific. But Adam and Eve did disobey and, again, it was by choice. According to today’s text, this is where pain and suffering began and it is because of their disobedience that we experience it today. Man brought on the curse of death all by himself with no help from God. It is not God that caused man to disobey. The devil was at the root of it and man’s will fulfilled that disobedience.
Now that we know the how’s, where’s and why’s of suffering, we can deal with the question of the day. God is not responsible for the outcome of bad choices. The choices are ours to make and the outcome is a result of those choices. We have the opportunity to walk alone during suffering or we have the choice to have the Lord be a part of our lives and, therefore, reap the benefit of His peace during the suffering! Despite man’s disobedience, God’s love for us was so great that He provided man with the blessed opportunity to seek Him, find Him and believe in Him. (Romans 6:23)
God has left His light for us through the Bible so that we can find Him. The Bible has been translated in almost 2,500 different languages. Throughout its pages are God’s words leading us to Him, despite man’s rebellion and his sin choice.
~Psalm 119:105 NUN. Thy word [is] a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
It’s our choice to sin and it’s our responsibility to seek God for forgiveness.
~Acts 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
He shows the way through the Scriptures. Some will read the words of God and accept them, and some will reject His words. It’s man’s responsibility to respond to God’s word, not God’s. God does not force Himself on anyone. The seed of faith is planted and then man must make a choice (Matthew 13:18-23). Those who desire to seek after God will be shown the way. The Ethiopian eunuch desired to know what God’s word said so God sent Philip to show him (Acts 8:26-40).
You can speak to any Christian who is strong in his faith and he will tell you that without the Lord, he would be nothing. He would say that without the Lord, he would not be able to go through the trials that come his way. The trials of suffering build the Christian’s faith and that Christian rests in His care. However, the unbeliever reacts differently and blames God for those trials. We can’t speak for God – we can’t know His thoughts or His ways for they are a mystery to us. But He does choose to reveal things to us through His word.
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
God may allow trials to strengthen our faith so that we may act according to His word. To the unsaved, trials and suffering may be allowed so that they can turn to Him and come to know Him. We can’t know all of God’s thoughts. It is not for us to know at times.
~Romans 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
I heard this story once about a man and his little boy walking in the woods side by side. The little boy slipped on wet leaves and fell down an embankment, tearing his pants and scraping his knee. The father picked him up, comforted him, wiped away his tears and cleaned his scraped knee. That father was walking right beside his son but yet the accident still happened. However, it is the outcome to which you must take notice. Had the child been walking alone, he would not have had his father to comfort him. Suffering happens in our lives, but God picks us up, comforts us, wipes away our tears and cleans us up. Walking with the Lord provides us with a constant companion – One who desires only the best for us.
Will suffering continue to happen? Absolutely! Some suffering is due to our own stubborn will (like smoking). Some suffering comes from a total accident. However, all the results of our suffering come by choice. We can choose to suffer alone without God or have Him present with us. (Psalm 23:4)
In 1992 a friend of mine shared a booklet with me entitled “Triumphant in Suffering” which was a tremendous blessing to my heart. Below are several excerpts from the book that has brought me much encouragement and comfort through the years as I have done battle with many of the severe symptoms, and muscle pain, that accompany Fibromyalgia.
“Why does God allow the death of that much needed mother? Why does He allow the vehicle of a drunken driver swerve in to the path of that promising youth and leave him crippled for life? Story after story similar to these could be related — heart rending stories. There are multitudes in this world who are innocent victims of tragedy! (No, victims are not sinless, but neither have they necessarily brought their suffering upon themselves.) We have no problem understanding why a tyrannical, murderous ruler should suffer, but why should a saint? Why do some saints seemingly experience more troubles than their ungodly neighbors?
Let us begin with a reason so basic that it is often overlooked. God allows suffering because it is part of the package that man chose and continues to choose. Prior to the fall, man was warned that disobedience would yield grave consequences, for God alone knew the far – reaching consequences of that choice. So then, after the first pair (Adam & Eve) had sinned, God immediately informed them that a new dimension would enter their lives–hardships, sorrow, and suffering. God has never rescinded that sentence. Neither have men stopped making the choice initially made by Adam & Eve. On an individual level, not all suffering is the direct consequence of some particular, personal sin.
Under God’s providence, suffering, of whatever kind it may be, sometimes becomes a fruitful means of bringing sinners to the end of themselves. God’s program is geared, not to save us from suffering, but to save us from sin. Allowing a man to suffer may, in some instances, be the last possible way of bringing him to his senses. Not until he was reduced to poverty did the prodigal son finally say, “I will arise and go to my father.”
Another side of foregoing truth is God’s desire to draw men and women into a personal relationship with Him. Here again, God can utilize human suffering to further this purpose. As a consequence of the fall, all of us are inclined to ignore God and to attempt to be self-independent rather than God dependent. But when the waters get deep, to whom does one turn for help? In such circumstances many have, for the first time, turned to God. In this way persons who could not be drawn are sometimes driven to develop an ongoing dependence of God. One man confessed, “I’ve learned more of God since I came to this bed than through all my former life.” To shield us from suffering would be to rob us of this greater good.
As it relates to the saint, the troubles and trials of life are easily integrated by God into His ongoing work of sanctifying the believer. Job’s statement, “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” Job 23:10, bears witness to God’s use of the purifying potential found in affliction. Upright though Job was, the fires of affliction served well to burn out the dross that still remained in his life.
Sometimes we simply need to be made newly aware of our own limitations and the frailty of life. At other times, however, as Hebrews 12 indicates, we may stand in need of correction. By allowing sickness and suchlike, God can accomplish these ends too.
For all His children, God’s goal is a Christlike beauty of character. This, however, is a beauty that no one inherits by natural birth. Even in some newborn souls, it is not very recognizable. But suffering that is gracefully borne can serve as a means of unfolding this beauty. The Christian has been likened to a photograph of Christ that God takes into the “darkroom” of affliction for the purpose of developing.
God wants His children to possess not only beauty of character but also strength of character. Here lies another reason for God allowing what He does. If God removed from life the element of struggle, how could we acquire that much-needed moral fiber and spiritual muscle strength? In this area, as in every other, God knows what is best.
God so loves the world that He wants all men to know about the sufficiency of His wonderfully sustaining grace. What better way can this be demonstrated than by triumphant saints who in the midst of suffering find God’s grace so sufficient that they can testify, as did the great apostle Paul, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Cor. 12:9-10
Because He allows suffering, God receives praise from multitudes of suffering saints that He otherwise would not receive from them. Futhermore, these saints have learned that in the school of suffering God teaches lessons that can be learned in no other school. These are typical of the ways in which God transmutes “bad” things into “good” things. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
No, the mystery of suffering cannot be completely unraveled, for at best we now “see through a glass, darkly.” Much will remain that cannot be explained. If that were not so, we would have no need of faith. We must be content to let God know some things that we do not know. There is a “thus far and no further” to the inquiry of man. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Deut. 29:29
The ways of God, in their entirety, are for us “past finding out” (Romans 11:33). But enough about them can be learned to satisfy the believing heart.”
This assurance is beautifully stated in the following poem:
I know not why His hand is laid
In chastening on my life,
Nor why it is my little world
Is filled so full of strife.
I know not why, when faith looks up
And seeks for rest from pain,
That o’er my sky fresh clouds arise
And drench my path with rain.
I know not why my prayers so long
By Him has been denied,
Nor why, while others’ ships sail on,
Mine should in port abide.
But I do know that God is love
That He my burden shares;
And though I may not understand
I know for me He cares.
I know the heights for which I long
Are often reached through pain;
I know the sheaves must needs be threshed
To yield the golden grain.
I know that, though He may remove
The friends on whom I lean,
“Tis that I thus may learn to love
And trust the One unseen.
And when at last I see His face
And know as I am known,
I will not care how rough the road
That led me to my home.
—Grace E. Troy
(“Triumphant in Suffering”)