suffering

To understand the necessity of suffering, we have to start with why it’s possible in the first place.

The highest purpose for which we were created was to enter into a loving relationship with the Lord and to worship him. However, that kind of relationship requires a free will choice on our part. Because love is, by nature, a choice more than an emotion, if God forced it from us, then it would cease to be love. And we can know that’s the case, in part, because otherwise there is no good reason for him to have created us with free will.

I’ve written often over the years on the subject of innocent suffering and truly believe that God redeems all he allows, even disasters like those in today’s news. At the same time, I don’t want to sound a positive note that would be tone-deaf to those who are grieving. So instead, I’ll offer some very personal reflections that are different from any I’ve shared in the past.

For the last year and a half, Ukrainians have witnessed suffering first-hand, perhaps like no other Western country in modern times. They have seen explosions, heard gunfire, escaped as buildings collapsed around them, lost their jobs and livelihoods, and watched as their friends and family have given their lives for their country.

As a Ukrainian and the area director of Young Life Western Ukraine, an organization devoted to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with adolescents, I have witnessed both suffering and celebration, peace and turmoil, and heartbreak and courage in the teenagers my team and I minister to each week.

This week we’ve been exploring ways to trust God when it’s hard to trust God. When we plead with him for help with our suffering but he seemingly refuses to do what we ask, our confidence in his love and power can be shaken. Today, let’s consider three biblical explanations for such a response from our all-loving, all-powerful Father.

How do we trust God when he doesn’t do what we’re trusting him to do? Each of us experiences disappointment with God on occasion; only the most naïve would expect the Lord to give them everything they ask for every time they ask for it. However, when a true challenge arises and God does not give us what we ask, our faith can be shaken to its foundations. We can question whether God is who the Bible and the Christian faith claim him to be. Or we can question whether we are who the Bible and the Christian faith claim us to be.

The Psalms explore the full range of human emotions from a God-centered perspective. Some Psalms leap off the page as they call worshippers of the one true God to lift their voices up to him with thankfulness and joy. We also see Psalms in which the writer laments the horrible position he finds himself in. The Psalmists speak to God honestly about the pain they are facing. They speak clearly and honestly about their pain. When Christians sing songs that sound like the lament Psalms, we gain a vocabulary for how we talk to God when we are suffering.

If you are grieving or otherwise suffering this Christmas week, I urge you to “seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (1 Chronicles 16:11). Go to him directly and personally. Put words to your pain; ask him your honest questions. If, as Philip Yancey put it, you are “disappointed with God,” know this: he is not disappointed with you. He welcomes your honesty (cf. Isaiah 1:18) and will meet you where you hurt.

One reason many struggle to make God their anchor in the storm is that they blame him for the storm. If he is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, why are tornadoes allowed to kill little girls clutching their dolls? Why are pandemics allowed to ravage the planet? I have struggled with this question personally.

I was privileged to talk with Chris Brooks on his national radio show yesterday. We discussed the tornado outbreak and the recent high school shooting in Michigan that occurred not far from the church where he serves as pastor. Chris made the profound point that God uses suffering to point us beyond this world to the next and to call us from our finitude to his omnipotence. 

Tragedy is a tragic fact of life. It is normal and natural for us to ask with the psalmist, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1). But the fact is, God does not hide himself in times of trouble. He grieves as we grieve (cf. John 11:35) and walks with us through the “waters,” “rivers,” and “fire” of our broken world (Isaiah 43:2).