Pain and Suffering

How can a just and loving God allow suffering here on earth? The reality of suffering and pain is often the hardest thing to endure, and it's often a great challenge to a persons faith. To confuse matters, there are people in this life who don’t suffer at all. Sometimes these people are obviously wicked and, c'mon admit it, we all wonder why God doesn’t lay them low and teach them a lesson. (Admitting it's a good thing, but now you should repent of it.) But at other times, it seems as if those that suffer are the least among us, the least able to bear the burden, and perhaps even innocent of all wickedness. These innocents are made to toil and suffer, sometimes briefly, but sometimes for their entire lives. How is any of this fair? How does this come from a just and loving God?

The reasons behind the suffering of the innocent often remain a mystery to those of us here on earth. We can, however, come up with some valid theories.

The first thing to consider is this: All life is a gift from God. Each of us has the potential - every single one of us - to have an eternity of physical life after passing through death. St. Paul says, "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18). All of our sufferings in this life are finite - no matter how permanent such suffering may seem - it need not follow us into the next life. God is both infinitely powerful and infinitely merciful. He is capable of making it up to the innocent. His means of making up our sufferings here on earth are an eternity of joy and happiness. No matter how much we suffer here on earth, it will be made up to us in heaven: An infinite amount of happiness and joy will always make up for a brief lifetime of pain and misery.

A Christian reflection on pain must always end with a vision of heaven, the true home of humanity. You have to keep heaven in mind at all times when you are in pain or suffering, especially if that pain and suffering is long-term, relentless, or seemingly unjust.

Either the sufferings of the innocent are meaningless and can never be redeemed or they are part of larger plan that you and I may not be able to make sense of. Our faith in God allows us to see that such suffering can be redeemed. I don't believe that the innocent who suffer are just out of luck. That would mean that their pain is meaningless and that nothing will ever happen to them to make amends for their sorrow. I believe that there is meaning and purpose in everything that happens to us. Ultimately, God can make good of all pain, just like he did with the pain and sufferings of his only Son.

It’s also true that some suffering can be made useful by God in other ways. These other ways are often be very subtle. Consider a situation where you are deeply wronged by someone over a long period of time. Not only are you hurt, but your family is hurt – or maybe splintered – as a result of one persons relentless attacks. Let’s also assume that this wrong inflicted upon you is unjust, and that the person on the other side of the situation gains professionally from his or her actions against you. Your suffering means their promotion. This happens all the time in the real world, doesn’t it? But your suffering is setting off a chain of events in this other persons life. They are being given choices. Those choices are usually pretty simple when you boil them down to the bare essence of all our choices in life: They can either choose to follow God's law and love their neighbor, or they can choose to follow their own desires and heap wrong upon the innocent and gain glory in this life. If they choose to pursue a path against God’s law then those choices will, eventually, separate them from God’s love as well. Through your sufferings these people may be choosing their eternal fate - for better or worse. (If you ever want to read an interesting book on the effect of such choices after this life, pick up a copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce.)

Suffering can make you holy if you let it. Stay true to your faith, no matter how hard it may be, and all your pain and sorrow will be made up to you later.