Suffering is Not God’s Direct Will!

Someone asked C.S. Lewis, "Why do the righteous suffer?" "Why not?" he replied. "They're the only ones who can take it."

Where does suffering come from? First of all, I think it’s important to state the obvious. Suffering is real. There are some ways of thinking that would deny this, that would say that suffering occurs in our minds only. We need only to look to the cross of Christ, to see the reality of His suffering for you and for me. Suffering was so real that our Lord Himself came to live in it, experience the full depth of it, conquer it, and redeem it. His suffering was real. So it ours!

We need to say that God’s Word makes it super clear that there is a lot of suffering in this world, and that it is not an illusion. Way back in Exodus 3:7-8 “The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians...”

Suffering came into the world because of man’s fall. The world God created was perfect, and the life God created for humanity was perfect. Part of that perfection, I would suggest, is that God did not create people to be robots. Instead, He gave us wills to use so we’d make choices ourselves, and so that we would truly live free.

God is free, and He made us in His image likewise to be free. But history makes it painfully clear that we have chosen to use our freedom in ways that bring pain to others. We have chosen to exercise our freedom to live selfishly. Nations have warred against other nations, always, always with innocent civilians taking the worst hits as kings fought it out for more land, or more wealth or power. So death, pain, grief, loneliness, and all other types of suffering were not part of God’s original world (Genesis 1:31; 3:17-19; 5:29; Romans 5:12,14,18; 8:20-22; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; Revelation 21:3-4).

But God also has a permissive will. He permits things to happen, things that are definitely outside his plans, and He permits them to happen, frankly, as a very clear way of honoring the fact that He has created another will other than His own in the universe. It is the human will. God gave you your will, your ability to think for yourself, to make up your own mind, to choose good over evil, or, as we too often do, to choose the selfish over the good.

Let me tell you something. God  permits us to screw up! Very often these are in small ways that for believers help us to grow and learn to follow Jesus more closely. But also in big ways. So, if there must be suffering what meaning might it have? How can we understand the suffering in our own lives?

I know that many of us body of believers have suffered terribly; such as the loss of those dearest to us. Physical and emotional pain that no matter the deep healing God is doing and has done in us, remains at least a reminder of the brokenness of our lives.

When we say to a person who is really struggling and suffering, it is God’s will that you suffer, and you just need to accept His will, we need to be really careful. Because to a hurting person, that can sound an awful like God wants them to suffer, and means them to suffer.

However, nothing could be further from the truth! God may be permitting them to suffer, but it’s simply not His desire that they suffer. ot only does God not want us to suffer, He has done what no human could have ever imagined. Many people view God as distant, unapproachable. There are many religions in the world that understand holiness as a kind of aloofness from the world, being untouched by pain.

So, how do we then live as people of God? We can live in the knowledge that we serve a good and gracious God who loves us truly with an everlasting love. We serve a God who does not want bad things to happen. God’s way of exercising his sovereign control is in giving us a will and a responsibility. Your will is yours to do with what you choose. 

We can have a lot to say about what the suffering does to us. We can determine what sort of people we become because of it. Pain makes some people bitter and envious. It makes others sensitive and compassionate. It is the end result, not the cause, of pain that makes some experiences of pain meaningful and others empty and destructive. It is left up to us and our relationship with our God. 

In closing, we need to remember and walk in the reality that God calls us, and equips us in Jesus Christ. He enables us to do the good over the bad, the right thing over the wrong thing, the loving thing over the selfish thing.

Resolve to love God who loves us enough to let us create and get into messes. Suffering is not God’s direct will. It results more often than not from us abusing the gift of free will. Such a God does not deserve our judgement, caution or our dismissal. Such a God, entering in as he does into our suffering in Christ, deserves our whole-hearted acceptance and embrace. Our worship.

Scripture: Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 5:10; Romans 8:18; John 16:33; 1 Peter 4:12

Prayer: Jesus, speak to me in these days of suffering to reveal to me, the will of God. "You have kept count of my tossing; put my tears in your bottle." (Psalm 56:8). "This I know, that God is for me" (Psalm 56:9). Come to my help soon. Cut short the days of suffering. Deliver me from the present adversities. Grant me long life and health to praise You in peace. Lift me up to become a witness for You. Amen

May God bless you always,

Joanne