Why God allows suffering ............. Parables 765

October 2, 2002

For this series on why God allows suffering, I had prepared an outline for each article. The past couple of weeks have been filled with so many other responsibilities that I’d no time to write, or even think about writing.

Then came Sunday, September 15. My mother woke that morning with her usual cheerful attitude, and asked her care givers in the nursing home to play some music on her tape deck. As they began to prepare her for the day, she bowed her head and died.

My mother had Alzheimer's yet still recognized her family and maintained a remarkable attitude. She was happy, thankful, and as her nurses said, a joy to take care of.

With great sorrow in our loss, I’ve fumbled through my responsibilities in preparation for her funeral. Today, I determined to finish the next article in this series. When I opened the file, my first line said, “God allows suffering because this is the way that He takes us home.”

Death is inevitable. When someone is ill, my husband often says, “We are all terminal, but most of us don’t know when — so we need to prepare for it when we are alive.”

Most of us do not know how death will come either. Will it be an accident? Illness? Great suffering? Even “natural causes” involve some pain as the body ages and common illnesses or organ failures join hands with death to carry us from this world. Suffering and dying usually go together.

That said, some suffer more than others. We have two doctors living nearby. One told me a horror story of “the worst death I have ever seen” and another talked about patients who linger for months, even years, in pain. They want to die but cannot.

Some advocate euthanasia as the means to overcome the pain of dying. Others will not go that far but will ask for morphine or some medication to ease the pain. Even though many people seem to fear pain far more than dying, the Bible calls death the final enemy.

However, for God’s people, there are no guarantees of an easy death. Hebrews speaks of Old Testament saints who were stoned, sawed in two, and put to death by the sword. Jesus Himself died a horrible death. He suffered more than we can imagine.

Even so, the New Testament also says that Jesus endured the Cross “for the joy set before him” and that some of God’s people “were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might face a better resurrection.” That is our hope.

Hebrews 2 says that Jesus shared in our humanity so “by His death he might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

Because of Jesus, we no longer need to be afraid of suffering or dying. Those who believe in Christ know that because He lives, we also will live.

Suffering does not always imply punishment. Suffering does not always lead to a greater good, at least in this life, but in the suffering of death, it can be the doorway to eternal life with Christ. That is the greatest good of all.

Ultimately, God takes responsibility for our suffering. He knows all about us. As a butterfly must not be helped out of its cocoon, or a chick aided through the shell of an egg, our Maker may have an unseen purpose in the struggle of some to move from the confinements of this life to the freedom of eternal life.

Yet for others, God has a different plan, perhaps just to show the gentleness of Jesus. My mother’s suffering was minimal. Because she knew Jesus and was not afraid of death, when her time came, she went without any resistance.

Why does God allow suffering? ............. Parables 764

September 4, 2002

Nancy* tearfully shared that her father was in the hospital with pancreatic cancer. The doctors said he would live only a few months at most. Nancy asked people to pray.

In two weeks, the doctors noticed her father was not showing the same symptoms as he had earlier. They decided to do more tests; first a MRI scan, then a second one. The cancer they had seen with their eyes in surgery had disappeared. They could not explain it, and within days they sent the man home with a clean bill of health.

Nancy and her parents suffered considerably for a few weeks. The father’s suffering was both mental and physical. For a while, he was on life support. The two women suffered emotionally as they tried to adjust to his condition. Everyone was glad the suffering came to a happy ending, but why did God allow it in the first place?

The answer is found in another story about another man. This one suffered all his life; he had been born blind. The theology of the day said he was being punished by God because he or his parents had sinned. (In other words, life would be perfect if everyone behaved themselves?)

When Jesus’ disciples saw this man, they reflected this current reasoning by asking Jesus who was guilty, this man or his parents. Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened that the works of God might be displayed in his life.”

At that, Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes and told him to go wash in a certain pool. When the man obeyed, he “went home seeing.” Those who knew him were amazed. They could not explain what happened. The religious folks accused him of being an imposter, then threw him out of the temple. They were not willing to admit that Jesus healed him, or that this healing was a miracle from God.

While this story has many implications for our faith, most important to the topic of why God allows suffering is Jesus’ answer to the disciples. This man suffered, not because of his sin, or because someone else had sinned, but that by healing him, God was going to be glorified.

What does a person do with this story? We could ask a logical question: How would we know that God conquers sickness if there were no sicknesses for Him to conquer? Would the man have ever discovered the power of Jesus Christ unless he had been blind?

Bring it closer to home. In the above situation, Nancy, her family, and her friends prayed knowing the story about the blind man. We also know that Jesus is “the same yesterday, today and forever.” We know He can do the impossible all over again. He once fixed what medical science was unable to fix, and He hasn’t changed. While we cannot assume to know the mind of God and presume He will heal, we do know He can do it.

Nancy’s father was healed, not by prayer but by God. Even those who believe in God and believe that He hears and answers prayer shake their heads in awe when He does it. We must give Him glory for He is powerful and good.

Sometimes people do suffer as a result of their own foolishness. Sometimes suffering is a punishment for sin. Sometimes suffering is the result of someone else’s sin. But sometimes God allows suffering so He can do a miracle in response to our prayers. The only way to find out is to pray, knowing He has the power to do the impossible, and see what happens.

(* The name is changed, but the situation happened this summer!)