How does God allow pain & suffering?

[listener24]

On 1/24/2019 at 2:16 PM, John2019 said:

Hi, I hope everyone is well,

I'm a guy in my early 20s, from the UK, and I have been toying with the belief in God, Jesus Christ, for a couple of years now. I come from a non-religious family.

There's quite a few things that stop me from totally believing, but one of the main ones is the idea of all the pain and suffering in the world. I know this is a very generic and hard to totally answer question, and something that non-religious people often say, but it is truly confusing me.

I just cannot understand how God doesn't stop Christ-loving, devout Christians from being brutally murdered, being in extreme & painful car crashes, getting kidnaped.. you get the idea. The reasonings I seem to understand the most (but not completely) is that of course God gives people freewill, and sadly some few people use that freewill to commit evil acts against others, - but so many more people do great and kind things too. I just wish he gave freewill, but also took evil acts out of peoples minds! 

I also really cannot understand the things that humans, no matter how evil, cannot control but God could - like car crashes (ones that are not caused by people, ones caused by icy roads maybe), natural disasters, etc.. I have such a fear of being in a car crash..lol!! 

I'm hoping someone on this forum could please help me with my struggle on this idea, as it really is stopping me from believing in Him.

Thank you very much in advance, for any replies :) 

Hey thanks for the great questions!

Everybody is still suffering because God's Kingdom of Heaven hasn't come yet. Because of our rebellion we are still in a fallen state until Jesus' Second Coming, and while His Spirit can start healing our hearts, the whole creation is in eager expectation for the Lord to show His glory and redeem us.

Meanwhile Satan has control over this world.

Paul calls satan "the god of this world". (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Jesus calls him "the ruler of this world". (John 14:30)

Furthermore Jesus says: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." (John 18:36)

Moreover Jesus states very often that He is not of this world: "But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." (John 8:23)

That is why Christians are ultimately to pray, desire and explicitly ask God: "Thy Kingdom Come. Deliver us from the evil one"

ALL of these concepts were very clear to the first Christians, who were praying "Maranatha" which means "come Lord Jesus". (Revelation 22:17, 22:20)

Unfortunately throughout history deception entered Church and these concepts started becoming blurred.

Nowadays with "Kingdom now theology", "prosperity Gospel, "social Gospel" and many other human inventions it's very hard to get a straight doctrine. But the good news is that Scriptures haven't changed.

Read the 4 Gospels, read the letters and you will find most answers :)

Then maybe the Spirit will move into your heart and you will join our prayer and mission of spreading the Gospel, this way "speeding up His coming" (2 Peter 3:12) and the end of all suffering.

[Billiards Ball]

On 2/12/2019 at 10:08 PM, Figure of eighty said:

I'm glad what you said helped them... but my question would be why does God intervene for some and not others. Ive been in situations where I could have been taken advantage of like that.. if anything would have happened it would have been my fault and I accept that but it didn't, it never did and I'm thankful for that. But I just wonder like why was I protected and another not? Like one of friends had decent parents while a couple others were victims of rape. Some people go through with suicide while God stops some..Ive read stories of both. I honeslty feel there a bit of both free will yet Gods sovereignty. I don't know to the OP I don't know why certain things are allowed..I just don't.

Because God never watches over one person only, He has the whole world in mind. A couple miscarries a baby and the child goes to Heaven. They grieve, never knowing that their baby, now in Heaven, would have grown up to rule the world as a hated tyrant, a mass murderer. We know little of the plan.

To answer your question, God is sovereign and also allows us free will.

[Prycejosh1987]

Simply for spiritual edification and fulfilment. We have to believe we need God and that good is what we really need, God wants us to see that for ourselves.