10 Reasons To Believe In A God Who Allows Suffering - Lesson 1

As a parent, do you help or hurt your children by continually protecting them?


There is little doubt when we do that which can be done by our sons and daughters, it does harm. There are some people who will do all that which is in their power to shield their children from perceived harm. God isn't obligated to protect us from our poor decisions.



How can you protect them from danger without shielding them from the necessary consequences of their wrong choices?


The best way is to clearly show the natural consequences of decisions by letting the decisions run to their logical end. I don't want my sons to necessarily find out the harms of poor decisions, but if we can do due diligence of presenting the consequences, perhaps it can be noted and avoided.


1. Suffering comes with the freedom to choose


God takes the risk and considers it worthwhile to allow man to make his own decisions. We wouldn't like to be paralyzed and without ability to make a choice each time a bad choice presented itself. Being human means being free to choose right or wrong. That's the deal God gave us.


2. Suffering reveals what is in our hearts


Israel cuts 60% of the diamonds in the world and the number one export of Israel. Yet, they mine the raw diamond from other continents. Like our character, it forms with pressure and time, cutting, grinding and polishing.


Responses to adversity and suffering range from more faith in God to anger and bitterness. Goes back to the nature of the soul.


We really can't tell what is in our hearts until there is suffering/adversity. Which many find disconcerting, including myself. Nobody wants to suffer. But it does reveal us and introduces ourselves to each other.


The box cars in Auschwitz would carry 30 head of cattle but it was reported as many as 300 Jewish people would be packed into those cattle cars to be taken to their death.


How does God allow that?


In the first place, we are brought to the edge of eternity when we reflect on these circumstances in each of our lives.


3. Suffering takes Us to the Edge of Eternity


Those who find themselves and God through suffering have not wasted their pain. Our thoughts turn to God and the condition of our soul, not our bodies. Matthew 5:1-12 and Romans 8:18-19


Psalm 73:24-26


4. God turns suffering around for our good.


The Holocaust took roughly 1/3 of the Jewish population at the time yet resulted in the rebirth of a nation. WW I prepared a land for the people by giving the British control over the Holy Land and WW II prepared a people for the land by placing in their hearts a desire for their own homeland.


Genesis 50:20


Do we really know the "good" God intends to bring about through suffering? Our definition of good and God's definition of good are particularly different. We are utterly dependent upon God and there is no other way around this life but through suffering. Gulp.


God Is Working the Nightshift!


If you want wisdom, go to someone who has suffered through much and whose faith still remains strong. Amen.


Psalm 42


We are not toy soldiers programmed to tell our parents "I love you" each hour on the hour. We must be free to choose to love.


I wouldn't exchange my freedom to choose in order to enjoy freedom from pain. Pain would be meaningless and without content. We wouldn't even know the difference between pain and joy.


Atheists and others who rail against God about human suffering often forget much of the suffering we see in this world could be alleviated by other humans making better choices.


Genesis 2:15-17

Privilege - God put man in the garden of Eden

Responsibility - Work and Care for the Garden

Boundaries - Free to choose any tree from which to eat except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.


Genesis 3:1-8

Serpent distorted God's command by noting God only wants to keep them from eating because then their eyes will be opened and be like God, knowing good and evil.

Eve distorted God's command by seeing the fruit was indeed good for eating (Good never said it wasn't good for eating!) and why not gain more wisdom?


Bottom line, God said if they ate of it, they would die. Serpent said "nah, not going to happen" and Eve forgot about the death part and only saw wisdom.


There are natural consequences to our choices, both the good ones and the bad ones. Once Adam and Eve made the free will choice to eat of the fruit, it set in motion what God had set up- death, work, pain. It didn't have to be that way.


My personal suffering due to bad choices:

Where to start? So much needless time wasted because of poor choices. If I could go back in time to change so much, I would.


I like Piper's ANTHEM to avoid poor choices, but perhaps the best thing to ask is, "Is this beneficial for me and/or others?"


Psalm 40:11


Psalm 91:14


John 17:14


Ezekiel 18:23-32