Why Does God Allow Suffering? Part One
Recently, we received an email with a heart-stopping question. “If God is so good, why did He allow such a devastating earthquake to hurt and kill so many people in Haiti?”
Debris in the streets of the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Bel-Air, in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Over 150,000 have been confirmed dead and many more left homeless. (Image from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil)
Good question.
Several years ago, after my step-dad learned he had been diagnosed with diabetes, he had a similar question. He had just started a new job as a commercial truck driver. The onset of diabetes and the potential loss of his eyesight were a huge threat to his job security. He wondered, “Why did God give me this job, just to take it away? If people tell me to believe that God ‘blessed’ me with this job, how can I not believe that God also ‘cursed’ me with the diabetes that could take the job away?”
If God is so powerful and just, then why do terrible things happen? How do we worship and serve a God who sits back and lets horrific acts occur every day? And does He, as some people suggest, even cause terrible things to happen? If He is behind all of this suffering, either actively or passively, how can we call Him good?
On large scales (as in the case of Haiti) and smaller scales (as in the case of my step-father’s diabetes), wrestling with these questions impacts all of us. For believers, dealing with these difficult questions is a matter of faith. How can we stand firmly rooted in our faith in God, committed to serving in His Kingdom, if we don’t know in our hearts that He is worth serving?
And for those who don’t believe in God, these questions are equally important. The conversations I have had with people in my life who don’t believe have centered on these questions of God allowing suffering. If we don’t know how to answer these questions for non-believers, we won’t be prepared to “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)
So in light of the importance of thinking about these questions and coming to some conclusions, (though I’m the first to admit I don’t have all the answers!) we’ll be taking the next few posts to talk about suffering. Stay tuned for some things God has taught me about this area; in the meantime, leave a comment with your own questions or experiences.
