suffering/synonyms: Acute bodily or mental pain. Distress may be physical, but it is more often mental, referring to any deep anxiety, or the external circumstances that may produce it. Misery is extreme suffering or abject hopelessness, as from sorrow, great loss, poverty, or the like.
Why is suffering allowed by God?
That question has been asked by believers and non-believers alike…….the difference is, those who know God know that He is a balance of justice and mercy. Sin came into His perfectly created world because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve. So because of that first sin, all of creation (including you and me) is waiting for the healing that will happen when Christ returns.
Last Sunday I sang at a church in the Tampa, Florida area. At the fellowship meal afterwards I met a 43-year old mother of 3 who was still having therapy after a triple by-pass heart surgery 3-months ago. She had no warning, only tightness in her chest. She has MS, her husband travels for his job during the week, her father had just been diagnosed with cancer, and she has 3 boys ages 5-12 years old. She thought the tightness in her chest was stress from life’s challenges. The weekend her husband was home he encouraged her to go to the ER, but she refused….he insisted. They sent her home. The pain started then and she went back. This time she was in surgery within the day with 100% blockage in one artery and 90% blockage in two others. Post-surgically in the hospital one of her lungs collapsed. Of course many prayer warriors were lifting her up in prayer…..and she is recovering wonderfully. But, why would this godly young woman already dealing with MS have to suffer like that?
She is radiant with the love of Christ, and is a strong witness to her doctors, nurses and therapists. She gives God all the glory for His healing touch.
I have experienced pain physically and emotionally in my lifetime, but I’ve never really suffered. How about you? If you have, according to the definition at the top of this blog, how have you handled it?
Right now there is an abundance of suffering in Texas due to the devastation of hurricane Harvey and the ensuing rainfall that is still causing flooding. I can’t even imagine what that must be like. There will be human suffering, distress and misery there for a long time. Our prayers, finances and when possible, physical help, are with them.
There really is no way to end this blog on this subject because human suffering will always be with us. But I must encourage you that God is a loving and compassionate God, and His heart is broken as He sees the ongoing suffering of human kind.
The Apostle Paul suffered much as he shared the Gospel of Christ. He wrote in Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us…”
God sent His Only Son, Jesus, to this world; part human due to His birth from a virgin, so that He could feel and understand what we go through as humans. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, we read what was written about the suffering of Christ 700-years before His death on the cross. Verse 3: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.”
Dear God, help us to “rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us. Romans 5:3-5
Photo: Gisela Giardino, Flickr Creative Commons