Life is not all made up of pleasant pastures and cooling streams. Trial and disappointment can overtake us at anytime; and if privation comes; we are sometimes brought into trying places.
Conscience-stricken, we reason that we must have walked far away from God, that if we had walked with Him, we should not have suffered so. Doubt and despondency crowd into our hearts, and we say, The Lord has failed us. But, God is still there despite any tragedy you may be experiencing.
But why does God allow us to suffer?
That “why” question is not a new one. The “problem of pain,” as Christian scholar, C.S. Lewis, once called it, is atheism’s most potent weapon against the Christian faith.
God cannot love us; if He did He would remove the difficulties from our path
Our human intellects and notions of fairness reject the apparent contradiction between a loving God and a world of pain. Therefore, the only way to reconcile this issue is to view the world from God’s perspective. But, the only way to even begin to understand God’s perspective is to read His Word, the Bible. Because God does not always bring us to pleasant places. If He did, in our self-sufficiency we would forget that He is our helper. He longs to manifest Himself to us, and to reveal the abundant supplies at our disposal, and He permits trial and disappointment to come to us that we may realize our helplessness, and learn to call upon Him for aid.
What should be our attitude toward suffering?
First, it should be one of worship. We ought to say,
“O God, I believe You are the great and mighty God. I don’t understand all the things that are happening in my life, but, O God, I trust in You.”
Remember God can cause cooling streams to flow from the flinty rock.
We shall never know until we are face to face with God, when we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known, how many burdens He has borne for us, and how many burdens He would have been glad to bear if with childlike faith we had brought them to Him.
God’s love is revealed in all His dealings with His people; and with clear, unclouded eyes, in adversity, in sickness, in disappointment, and in the trial we are to behold the light of His glory in the face of Christ and trust to His guiding hand. But too often we grieve His heart by our unbelief.
‘You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have’
God loves His children, and He longs to see them overcoming the discouragement with which Satan would overpower them. Do not give way to unbelief. Do not magnify your difficulties. May we be people who fight spiritual amnesia with God-given means of remembrance.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus – Philippians 3:14
Suffering is a state of this fallen world. However, the complete message of the Bible is that God has His plan for redemption all worked out. Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ have a hope of eternity with God in a place where there is no more suffering or evil.
