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Why do we have to suffer? Let me start off by saying, I don’t know the complete and correct answer to this question. Only God knows so I believe that it would be dangerous for me to try and step into his mind and speak for Him. But I can point us to God and what he says in the Bible. In this blog post, I want to talk out my thoughts about the topic of suffering. I want to mention that these words are coming from conversations I have had with other Christians (including my bro, reading through the book of Job, looking up articles about suffering, and things I’ve learned so far.
Before diving into suffering, we have to understand the nature of God. Why? Because it would be easy to say, "God hates us and that's why we suffer." Nope. The truth is that God is good. That is a characteristic to describe Him. Good means “that which is morally right; righteousness.” With this definition in mind, only God can be classified as truly good. If God is the definition of good, then what does that make us? I recently heard this after watching the Netflix documentary, “American Gospel”---” Compared to God, we as humans are bad. So instead of asking, why do bad things happen to good people--we should be asking why do good things happen to bad people?” That kind of stings, right?!
Well, Luke 18:19 says that “No one is good except God alone.” I can't lie, the part about us all being “bad” was difficult for me to digest. I questioned how that could be?? However, since God is defined as good, it makes sense that we can’t put ourselves into the same category as Him. You may be thinking, “Well, if we are considered bad and there’s not much we can do about it, what is the point?”
Sis, the beautiful thing is that our “bad nature” is the reason God decided to step in and help us out. We can't forget that if we believe the Bible, the first man and woman messed it up for all of us, Because of this, God knew that we as humans could never measure up on our own. BUT God had a plan! He needed someone who COULD measure up. Someone who never messed up so that this person could take on the consequences we would've gotten. This person came in the form of Savior to pay or experience the consequence of our sins (Aka mess-ups aka wrongdoings). And this is where faith comes in. We have the choice to believe Christ was the solution or not. Christ was the one who measured up to God’s standard of perfection aka NO SIN.
Christ was the one who God required perfection. Not us! That takes the pressure off us. So we can exhale, sis. When we say “yes” to a relationship with God--it says, “God, I know I’m messed up. I can’t do this on my own.” We don’t like to hear the word, “sin” but guess what sin is? It means we unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) mess up from time to time which basically means we fall short of God’s standard.
Because of Christ, our job is to acknowledge what he did at the cross, repent, and to tell others about what he did so they can know the good news too. Repent is a “churchy word” that we hear all the time but it’s absolutely necessary. I had to look up what repent means and it means to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing aka sin. And to show that we truly feel this way, repenting is about making a decision to do things differently next time.
And guess what? We don’t have to change ourselves in order to have a relationship with God. Instead, it is our relationship with God that changes us. You may be thinking, “What do you mean?” It means you don’t have to get yourself together for God to want to have a relationship with you. Nope. God wants a relationship with you more than anything. That will ALWAYS come first. The byproduct of that relationship is changing. We can’t truly know God and stay the same. Once we "meet" God and spend time with Him on a daily basis, a change or transformation comes naturally.
I wanted to discuss those truths first just so we can understand the nature of God and the nature of us. Now, onto suffering. With suffering, we HAVE to understand that we will never know the exact reason why. I know this may be the reason you decided to read this blog but it’s a truth that we have to come to terms with. I also understand that uncertainty can be a difficult thing to grapple with because we naturally want answers to our questions. And I think this is the MOST difficult thing about having a relationship with God. He NEVER tells us everything.
Some people walk away from the faith for this reason. They just have too many unanswered questions. Maybe “they” is “you.” My brother and I recently had a discussion where we agreed that this is an issue we have to do better with as Christians. We can’t "sell" a faith that has all the answers. I believe that there are two ways we deal with the “not knowing”. We either walk away from the faith because we get frustrated at not having all the answers or we stay knowing that we will NOT have all the answers but we have a relationship with a God that does.
Truth is, we will NEVER know everything. True Christianity is mysterious because God himself is mysterious. There will always be some form of mystery in our lives. In fact, one of God's defining traits is that he is mysterious. In other words, we’ll never know Him completely. It’s what makes God who He is. There’s a reason why He is considered “all-knowing” while at most, we can be called “wise.” Why? Because we can spend our entire lives searching for wisdom and still not know everything.
The truth is that faith is the root of a relationship with God. Faith says, “I don’t have all the answers but I know God does.” Faith acknowledges the gaps in understanding that we have. Our faith is not meant to be perfect, sis. I believe that God made us this way so that we can depend on Him. This leads me to the topic of suffering. When I think of the word suffering, I think of the story of Job. Job literally lost it all. (His family, possessions, position, health, and reputation.). To me, that is THEE definition of suffering so it is no surprise that Job was going THROUGH it in every way. He felt that God was punishing Him. He kept crying out to God wondering why he had to go through such a DEEP pain. I can’t lie, I would probably do the same. The book of Job does mention that God allowed Satan to test Job. Sis, I can’t fully explain why this happened. But that was the main point of the story.
I read this in an explanation of Job 33--” If God were to answer all of our questions, we would not be adequately tested. Job’s greatest test was NOT the pain but that he did not know WHY he was suffering. The same is true for us. Our greatest test may be that we must trust God’s goodness even though we don’t understand WHY our lives are going a certain way. We must learn to trust in God, who is good, not in the goodness of life.” Honestly, that right there either solidifies our faith or tears it apart. A HUGE part of trusting God is trusting him with the unknown. And trusting Him starts with learning his character.
If I can be honest with you, it is downright hard to read through Job’s full story. I found myself getting mad FOR Job while reading the details of his story. But I had to go back to my foundation. Whenever I have a question about God’s actions, I go back to what I have learned about his character. I had to pause from reading and go back to what I know--“God is good.”
While my brain didn’t understand what happened to Job, my faith had to kick in and believe that God was and is still good despite what happened to Job. That’s what it all boils down to. The root of faith is knowing that God is good despite our situations not being “good.” In fact, God never promised that every situation we would be in would be good. He just promised two things: he would be with us in the not so good AND he would work some "good" out of the "bad." But no matter what, we have to find out "God is good" for ourselves. The beautiful thing about God is no matter how much we question Him and his existence, he will always find ways to show us how real he is. He will always always always come after us.
You may be thinking, “Okay that’s great for you but why would I want to get to know a God that did this to Job?” I can’t answer that question for you but I can say before you judge the heart of God, get to know him for yourself. It took time for me to confidently arrive at the conclusion that “God is good" ( I STILL have to remind myself when things aren't so good.) This isn’t just something that I am quoting from the Bible or something I like to say because it sounds "churchy." I definitely have my “low” moments but even in those times, I remind myself of this truth, “God I don’t understand but I know you are good and if I can't see the good yet, then you are not done yet.” Sis, I’ve experienced God being good in both my ups and downs and I know that you will too!
So the key to understanding suffering is perspective. It is a perspective of knowing that God has a way of working in our suffering. It’s not a perspective of pretending that suffering is not painful or that it does not exist but that God pulls the good out of all our suffering. Acknowledge the pain. Feel the pain. But let this truth pull you through it—- "For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Another thing that keeps me from being pessimistic about life is the fact that Christ suffered too. I mean he was PERFECT and he STILL suffered so it’s not like anyone has ever gotten a break from suffering.
I heard this quote and it’s nothing but facts---” God helps us to prepare for suffering by teaching us and showing us that through suffering we are meant to go deeper in our relationship with Christ. You get to know him better when you share his pain. There is a special revelation, a special intimacy, prepared for those who suffer with Christ.”
This may not be something we want to hear but it’s the truth. And this quote is not meant to say God causes suffering because I just don’t believe he has to give us suffering to teach us a lesson. But He will USE our suffering. "One of the uses of our suffering is that our relationship with God can become less formal and less artificial and less distant, and become more personal and more real and more intimate and close and deep."
Here’s something else that spoke to me--” The answer is that suffering is nothing more than the taking away of bad things or good things that the world offers for our enjoyment — reputation, esteem among peers, job, money, spouse, sexual life, children, friends, health, strength, sight, hearing, success, etc. When these things are taken away (by force or by circumstance or by choice), we suffer. If when you become a Christian you write a big red “LOSS” across all the things in the world except Christ, then when Christ calls you to let go of some of those things, it is not strange or unexpected. The pain and the sorrow may be great. The tears may be many... But we will be prepared. We will know that the value of Christ surpasses all the things the world can offer and that in losing them we gain more of Christ.” And the truth is this whole paragraph sounds terrible unless we have a close relationship with God. Once this happens, we learn quickly that all the material things in the world can come and still leave an emptiness.
So in conclusion, suffering is a complex thing. We will probably never know the exact reason why we suffer but I know one thing, we don't suffer for no reason. Our suffering has meaning. It means something. It can be painful and downright exhausting so I tell you to cry those tears, grieve that loss, and have those real and deep conversations with God. But know this, if you have a relationship with Christ, the best thing is knowing that one day you will NOT suffer. Sis, I definitely think that’s something to look forward to. But while here on earth, remember God is with you in your suffering.
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