God Loves us Through Pain and Suffering.
Why does God Allow Suffering?
When speaking with atheist and non-believers it can be challenging, but they often seem to think that have an ace in the hole when they ask, "If God is real and so good why he allows pain and suffering?" The truth may be hard to take when the person you are speaking is or has gone through pain and suffering, but if they are willing to listen they will understand and may rethink their flawed logic for not believing. When God made Adam and Eve, he made them perfect, flawless, without pain, suffering, sickness or death. When they chose to disobey God, they opened to door to pain, suffering, sickness and death. "Man lives in a universe of cause and effect and the consequences of certain causes are inescapable. Fire burns, water drowns, disease germs destroy. These facts have moral implications. Men live in a universe in which the consequences of what they do are inescapable, and therefore their responsibility for what they do is equally inescapable. Without this burden of 'natural law' man could do as he liked with impunity, and there would be no responsibility." God made the universe this way because He is a moral God who makes men responsible beings with freewill to choose how they will act. ““Man's neglect and misuse of his own life has corrupted the stream of human life itself, and left evils which fall on succeeding generations. These, again as part of natural law, may manifest themselves as hereditary weaknesses and tendencies to disease. The very stuff of life may be affected as it is passed on from generation to generation." “The consequences of man's acts are not only directly physical. The social and political evils that they have created throughout history have left a gathering burden on the generations following. People today are caught in a net of the consequences of past history, and even when they try to right one evil, another is brought to bear: "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22). It all began with Man's original sin, that is why we suffer, but we are not to blame God, but to seek his comfort 2 Corinthians states "He comforts us whenever we suffer. That is why whenever other people suffer, we are able to comfort them by using the same comfort we have received from God." In addition to comfort, pain and suffering drives us to God and his word 2 Corinthians 7:8-11 “Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.” I lost my sister in July 2001, I could not figure out why, but I now find comfort in these words, “God is in control. His ways are different and higher than our ways. We may not like what we are going through, but we must always remember that God--who controls all things and knows all things--has decided that we should go through the particular suffering we are facing. Suffering demonstrates God's ability to inspire loyalty despite the anguish we're going through.” In closing I would like quote author CS Lewis, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but SHOUTS in our pains." The greater the struggle, the more we usually seek the face of God.
