Why Does God Allow Evil And Suffering?

Why Does God Allow Evil And Suffering?

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

A FEW YEARS AGO my family ate at a BBQ restaurant. As I was finishing, my stomach began to let me know something was wrong. I excused myself and walked—well, I ran—to the bathroom. I came out . . . thirty minutes later. I gave a report. “It’s not good. I’m not done. Let’s drive home during this . . . intermission.” We got in the car. Unfortunately it was about a twenty-minute drive to our house. It was not a good trip. At one point I started screaming, “Why, God? I’ll do anything, God! I’m suffering here, God! Can’t you help me? What’s happening, God? Why, God?”

The restaurant has since closed.^a

Not Funny

That story is humorous, but suffering rarely is. And I’m sure you have stories that aren’t funny at all:

Of your parents’ divorce.

Of a loved one dying of cancer.

Of being the victim of abuse.

Of your spouse leaving you.

And of course there’s pain and suffering on a more global scale: children starving, wars, babies orphaned due to the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

It’s impossible to avoid the question: If God is good, why is there so much suffering?

And more personally, and probably more pressing: Where is God when I hurt?

Cry

There’s a story in the Bible where two sisters named Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus that their brother, Lazarus, is on his deathbed. They’re hoping Jesus will show up and heal Lazarus. They have seen Jesus heal people before.

Jesus shows up almost a week later, but Lazarus has already been dead four days. The sisters, Mary and Martha, each meet Jesus with an accusation: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”^b

It’s what we do too. When we suffer, it’s easy to blame God.

In Week 1, I mentioned the time I got the call in the middle of the night from my friend Rich, whose daughter had just died in a car accident. I raced to their house. It was my first time in that kind of situation. I didn’t know what to say. Today, years later, with a lot more experience, I still wouldn’t know what to say. I understand that horrible things happen not because God causes them—he doesn’t; they’re not part of God’s plan. They happen because God gave people free will. For there to be freely chosen love, we have to have free will. And freely chosen love is the whole point. But free will means that people can make wrong choices, that everything can get messed up, and it has. Unfortunately, understanding the reason evil and suffering happen in our world doesn’t help when we’re in the middle of it.

Mary and Martha indicted Jesus. He saw their pain. The next line says, “Jesus wept.”^c

In the movie Selma there’s a moment when Martin Luther King Jr. comforts a father who just lost his son: “There are no words. But I can tell you one thing for certain . . . that God was the first to cry. He was the first to cry for your boy.”

When we suffer, God is the first to cry.

All I could do was sit with Rich and Karen and cry with them. And God was crying with us.

Happy Ending

It’s comforting to know God cries with us, but it doesn’t feel like quite enough. And that’s why the rest of this story is so powerful.

After crying, Jesus walks to the grave of Lazarus, he calls out to him, and Lazarus comes out of the grave. A moment ago he was dead, but now he is alive.^d

Jesus cried, but he did more than that. He cared for Mary and Martha. He took action. He met their need by raising Lazarus from the dead.

This is such a great lesson for us, because part of the pain when we suffer is that it seems like God has his eyes shut. But this story helps us see that God’s eyes are not shut. God knows what we are going through. And just as Jesus relieved the pain of Mary and Martha, a day is coming when God will relieve our pain. In fact, we’re promised that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.^e

Waiting

When you’re suffering, it’s hard to imagine the possibility of a happy ending.

But that’s a lesson from the life and death (and life again) of Lazarus. I think we need to learn from the waiting period in the story, the four days when Lazarus’s body was in the grave and his family cried and Jesus seemed callous. The four days of defeat, when Jesus didn’t show up and didn’t seem to care.

Those four days parallel the times when we face our pain and feel forgotten. For us it might be days or perhaps years of seeming defeat.

Looking at Lazarus’s story from this side of history, we can see how after four days of defeat, the story has a triumphant ending. In his timing, God took action. Lazarus returned to life; everyone rejoiced. Jesus had cared. He wasn’t callous.

We may have to wait far longer than four days, but if we love God, we have the promise of a personal solution ending in triumph. “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”^f Every question you’ve asked and every prayer you’ve prayed has been heard, and you will have a happy ending.

Even Now

Someday God will shake our Etch A Sketches, and the problems we’ve gone through will dissolve into a new painless picture. But until then, we don’t just wait. God can do some pretty cool things, even through our suffering, even now.

When Jesus showed up at Lazarus’s funeral, many people were gathered and watched everything go down. The result? “Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.”^g Incredible! The friends and family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus became believers in Jesus because of Lazarus’s death, because of Jesus’ delay in showing up, and because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

I told you that when Rich and Karen lost Megan, it felt like the end of the world. What I didn’t tell you is that despite their confusion, they stuck close to God and were surrounded by supportive friends. And eventually they experienced healing. And they grew. Their faith grew. Their compassion for hurting people grew. Their marriage grew. And God ended up using them to comfort several other parents who lost children, and later to start a church where the compassion that oozed out of them drew all kinds of people to Jesus.

I’ve seen it happen over and over. Eventually, God will bring about the ending we pray for. In the meantime, if we’re open to it, if we’re open to him, God will do some cool things in our lives, even now, even through our suffering.

Now What?

• Read Romans 8:28-39.
• How could you keep the perspective that God is for you and with you even when you’re suffering? How could that perspective help you to have a different attitude in the midst of pain?
• We live in a painful world. Belonging to God doesn’t shield us from pain, but it does mean we get to go through it with him. There are a lot of people who don’t know God and are struggling through difficulties alone. Ask God to show you a person or two he’s put in your life whom you could come alongside in their struggle. Ask him to show you how you can be Jesus to those people.