If God Is Good, Then Why Do I Still Suffer?

Why does God allow things like natural disasters, pandemics, mass shootings, abusive relationships, and fatal diseases? If God is so good, then why does He allow His people to suffer?

In my quest to find clarity on this question, I asked people in my Christian circles how they would answer it. Almost every single person took a prolonged pause and a deep sigh — then said something along the lines of “Well, that’s a hard question to answer.” They’re right. It is. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t have this topic mastered, but I want to share some thoughts and truths that have helped me during my personal experiences with hardship.

There was a season of my life not too long ago where I lost four significant people in the span of five years. It felt like a sucker punch to the gut over and over. Just as I would begin to process my grief, another person would pass away. In that season, I didn’t know how to express all my feelings of pain to God. All I could do was ask Him: “Why now? Why this way? Why to me?”

It’s essential to remember that the Lord does not delight in our suffering. Instead, Psalm 34:17–18 says, “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 also says that “God is a god of all comfort” and that “He comforts us in our afflictions.”

God understands our pain on a deep level — in fact, He suffered incredibly for us by taking on flesh and dying on the cross. In a devotional on suffering from She Reads Truth, the author paints a picture of Christ’s suffering: “The Son allowed His body to be tormented and twisted by the most gruesome torture device of the ancient world, the cross. And He did so to put an end to the world’s suffering, once and for all. In the same breath that He promised us suffering, He made another promise, one so sure that it was spoken in the past tense: ‘I have conquered the world’ (John 16:33).”[1] Jesus paid the ultimate price so we could live an abundant life with Him for eternity. Through the cross, He opened the door to make beauty from the ashes of our grief (Isa. 61:3).

In the midst of our suffering, we can hold fast to the truth that, through Christ, our pain is not lost. Though we might not see it yet, or fully understand how, God mercifully uses our suffering to make beauty. I believe that God does this for a variety of reasons, like reminding us that He is our hope (Ps. 119:114, Isa. 40:31, Rom. 15:13) or to grab our attention when we’ve gotten too comfortable (1 Peter 3:12, James 1:2–3, Rom. 8:8). But the primary reason that God allows and works through our suffering is to facilitate agents of change.

Agents of Change

Sometimes, we experience pain and suffering as a means to reveal how we need to change. The Lord allows these seasons so that our eyes are opened to see God in our desperation, which ultimately should lead to spiritual growth. Romans 5:3–5 describes the process this way: “…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope….”

Changing our hearts isn’t an easy process. In fact, more often than not, changing our hearts to be more like Jesus requires trials, hardship, and suffering. It’s in those moments that we recognize the weight of our sorrow is too much to bear on our own. Moments of desperation are opportunities to cast our cares on Him so that He can sustain us (Psalm 55:22).

Moody Bible Institute professor Michael J. Boyle refers to suffering as “…a great reminder that God’s mission and the gospel work in which we are immersed can often result in difficult circumstances and trials. The outcome of these hardships typically sees God’s mission progressing and God’s children being transformed increasingly in His likeness.”[2]

Not only do seasons of hardship give us opportunities to change our hearts and bring us closer to God, but almost as importantly, they teach and remind us how to process the ups and downs of life with the Lord.

In my recent season of grief and sorrow, I don’t think knowing why God allows suffering would have made me feel any better. Instead, what brought peace (and ultimately brought me closer to the Lord) was learning how to experience sorrow with God at the center of it all. In the Christian world, this process is called lamenting.

Lament is an important theme throughout Scripture. An entire book of the Bible is named after it (Lamentations), and 62 out of the 150 Psalms are centered on it. The process of lament is designed to give voice to our suffering. In their reflections on the Psalms, authors Andrew Schmutzer and David Howard describe lament as “…the process of presenting a specific need to God, not only so the special need may be resolved, but also that it may ultimately end [in] the praise of God’s name and Person.”[3] Less formally, this practice looks like taking our sorrow to God with full transparency, surrender, and praise. Schmutzer and Howard outline a biblical guide to lament based on Psalm 13. The seven steps they provide are as follows:

1️⃣ Introductory petition (13:1)
2️⃣ Lament (13:2–4)
3️⃣ Confession of trust (13:5)
4️⃣ Petition for favor and intervention (13:3)
5️⃣ Motive (13:4)
6️⃣ Vow to praise (13:6)
7️⃣ Anticipated thanksgiving (13:6b)

A vital part of lament is that it always ends in praise and thanksgiving. I hold this truth especially close to my heart. When we lament, it’s important to identify God’s past provision in our lives while remembering the promise of His future faithfulness. This process reminds us to acknowledge that even in our deepest pain and suffering, God is still good. When we practice lament this way, we’re able to remind our hearts that He has a good plan, even in the midst of our suffering.

I realize that this blog won’t satisfy every question about the reality of pain. Instead, I hope it serves as a reminder that God doesn’t leave us in our brokenness; rather, He sustains us and draws us closer, providing comfort through the beautiful practice of lament. God designed the process of grief to point us to Himself in our pain. Through it all, He is our ultimate sanctuary.

“Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted on earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” — Psalm 46:10–11

Further Reading:

Blog Post: You Will Have Suffering in This World by shereadstruth.com
Book: The Psalms: Language for All Seasons of the Soul by Andrew Schmutzer et al.
Book: A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss by Jerry Sittser

References

[1] “You Will Have Suffering in This World.” She Reads Truth, 21 Feb. 2023, shereadstruth.com/you-will-have-suffering-in-this-world/.

[2] Boyle, Michael J., et al. One Volume Seminary: A Complete Ministry Education from the Faculty of Moody Bible Institute and Moody Theological Seminary. Moody Publishers, 2022.

[3] Schmutzer, Andrew J., and David M. Howard. The Psalms: Language for All Seasons of the Soul. Moody Publishers, 2014.