This may be one of the hardest questions a person can ask.
If God loves us, why is there cancer?
Why do children suffer?
Why do marriages collapse?
Why do good people die?
Why do people pray and sometimes seem to receive no answer?
Why does God allow us to walk through things that nearly break us?
And when life becomes painful enough, eventually some people begin looking toward Heaven and asking:
“God, are You the problem?”
Scripture gives us a very different picture.
God is not the author of the darkness destroying this world.
God is the One offering the way out of it.
QUESTION: Then where did everything go wrong?
Go back to the beginning.
Genesis describes a creation that God repeatedly called good.
Humanity was created in God’s image.
There was fellowship with God.
Then came something God had given humanity from the beginning:
choice.
God gave Adam and Eve a command.
They disobeyed.
Sin entered the human story, and with sin came separation, suffering and death.
Paul writes:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin…”
— Romans 5:12
This matters.
We sometimes blame God for a world that is suffering from humanity’s rebellion against Him.
God didn’t tell Adam and Eve:
“Leave Me and everything will become better.”
The serpent did.
Humanity listened.
And we have been living with the consequences of sin ever since.
QUESTION: Does that mean every tragedy is punishment for someone’s personal sin?
No.
That is extremely important.
Jesus rejected that simplistic way of thinking.
In John 9, Jesus and His disciples encountered a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked:
“Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”
They assumed suffering had to mean somebody had personally done something deserving it.
Jesus answered:
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents…”
— John 9:3
Jesus was not saying they had never committed any sin. He was saying the man’s blindness was not the result of the particular personal guilt the disciples assumed.
We live in a fallen world.
Bodies become sick.
Accidents happen.
People hurt other people.
Natural disasters occur.
Death eventually comes to everyone unless Christ returns first.
Not every tragedy is God punishing somebody.
Sometimes suffering is simply evidence that this world is not what it was originally created to be.
QUESTION: But if God is powerful, why doesn’t He stop everything bad from happening?
Because stopping every consequence of human freedom would require God to continually override human choices and the world in which those choices operate.
Think about how much suffering comes directly from human decisions.
Wars.
Murder.
Abuse.
Drunk driving.
Adultery.
Greed.
Hatred.
Addiction.
Corruption.
Violence.
God has told humanity repeatedly:
Do not do these things.
Then humanity does them and asks:
“God, why did You allow this?”
Sometimes we are blaming God for the consequences of doing exactly what He warned us not to do.
That doesn’t explain every tragedy.
But it explains far more suffering than many people want to admit.
QUESTION: Does God ever test us?
Yes.
But Scripture makes an important distinction between testing and tempting someone to evil.
James writes:
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God… neither tempteth he any man.”
— James 1:13
Then:
“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”
— James 1:14
God may allow circumstances that test faith.
But God is not standing behind you whispering:
Commit adultery.
Take the drug.
Lie.
Destroy your family.
Hurt that person.
And then waiting to punish you for listening.
That is not the God Scripture reveals.
QUESTION: What about Satan?
The Bible doesn’t pretend evil is imaginary.
Peter warns:
“Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
— 1 Peter 5:8
Notice the word:
Adversary.
God is not your adversary.
Satan is.
Jesus described the contrast clearly:
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…”
— John 10:10
Then Jesus says:
“I am come that they might have life…”
There are two completely different directions.
One destroys.
One gives life.
Never confuse them.
QUESTION: Then why does God sometimes allow Satan to attack?
The book of Job forces us to wrestle with this.
Job was a righteous man.
Then his world collapsed.
He lost possessions.
He lost his children.
He lost his health.
His friends looked at his suffering and assumed he must have done something terrible.
They were wrong.
Job couldn’t see everything happening behind the scenes.
And that is one of the most important lessons in the entire book:
Job didn’t know what God knew.
Neither do we.
There will be moments in your life when you cannot understand why God allowed something.
That doesn’t automatically mean God abandoned you.
It means you are looking at one moment while God sees the entire story.
QUESTION: Is it wrong to ask God why?
No.
People throughout Scripture cried out to God.
David did.
Job did.
Habakkuk did.
Jeremiah did.
Even Jesus, while suffering on the cross, cried:
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
— Matthew 27:46
Faith is not pretending pain doesn’t hurt.
Faith is taking the pain to God instead of running away from Him.
There is a difference between asking:
“God, help me understand.”
and declaring:
“God, You are my enemy.”
God can handle your questions.
Bring them to Him.
QUESTION: What happens when we blame God and walk away?
Think about the tragedy of running from the only One who can ultimately save you because you’re angry about the storm you’re walking through.
Imagine a drowning man becoming angry at the person throwing him a life preserver.
The rescuer isn’t the problem.
The water is.
Yet pain can distort our thinking.
Something terrible happens.
We stop praying.
We stop worshiping.
We stop reading Scripture.
We become angry with God.
And slowly we distance ourselves from the very One who can give us the strength to survive what happened.
The answer isn’t farther away from God.
It’s closer.
QUESTION: Does following God mean my problems disappear?
Absolutely not.
Jesus never promised Christians a painless life.
In fact, He said:
“In the world ye shall have tribulation…”
— John 16:33
But He didn’t stop there:
“…but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
Christianity isn’t the promise that storms won’t come.
It’s the promise that the storm does not get the final word.
David walked through the valley.
Daniel entered the lions’ den.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego entered the furnace.
Paul went to prison.
The apostles suffered.
Jesus went to the cross.
God’s people have never been promised exemption from suffering.
They have been promised something greater:
God will be with them through it.
QUESTION: What if the problem is something I created myself?
Then God is still the answer.
Maybe you’re not suffering because somebody hurt you.
Maybe you’re suffering because you made terrible decisions.
You destroyed the relationship.
You wasted the money.
You fed the addiction.
You lied.
You cheated.
You ignored every warning.
You walked away from God.
Now everything is falling apart.
What do you do?
Come home.
The prodigal son created his own disaster.
He demanded his inheritance, left his father, wasted everything and eventually found himself desperate and hungry.
Then Scripture says:
“And when he came to himself…”
— Luke 15:17
He turned around.
And the father received him.
Sometimes the greatest spiritual moment in your life begins when you finally stop blaming everyone else and say:
“I did this. God, help me change.”
QUESTION: Can God bring something good out of something terrible?
Yes.
That does not mean the terrible thing was good.
There is a huge difference.
Joseph’s brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery.
What they did was evil.
Years later Joseph told them:
“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…”
— Genesis 50:20
God didn’t call their evil good.
God overcame their evil with His purpose.
That is hope.
God can take something He never approved of and still bring something meaningful from the wreckage.
Your worst chapter does not have to become your final chapter.
QUESTION: What is God’s ultimate answer to the problem of this world?
Jesus Christ.
Humanity’s greatest problem isn’t financial.
It isn’t political.
It isn’t physical.
It is spiritual.
Sin separates humanity from God.
And God did not leave us there.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son…”
— John 3:16
Look carefully at who moved first.
God did.
Humanity sinned.
God provided the Savior.
Humanity wandered.
God provided the way home.
Humanity faced death.
God offered eternal life.
We created the problem.
God provided the solution.
And that solution had a name:
Jesus Christ.
FINAL THOUGHT
Maybe you’re angry with God right now.
Something happened that you don’t understand.
Someone died.
Someone left.
Your body failed you.
Your family broke apart.
You prayed and the answer wasn’t what you wanted.
And somewhere along the way you started looking toward Heaven and thinking:
“God, why did You do this to me?”
Ask your questions.
Cry.
Grieve.
Be honest with God.
But don’t make the mistake of running from the One you need most.
This world is broken.
People will fail you.
Your own decisions may fail you.
Your body will eventually fail you.
Everything you possess will eventually belong to someone else.
But God remains.
He is not the darkness.
He is the light inside it.
He is not the storm.
He is the shelter.
He is not the chains.
He is the One who breaks them.
He is not the lost road.
He is the way home.
He is not death.
He is the resurrection and the life.
So when everything falls apart and you don’t know where to turn—
don’t run from God.
Run to Him.
Because God was never the problem.
He has always been the answer.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” — Psalm 46:1
RESTORED LIFE AFTER