If God Is Good, Why Is There Suffering? (An Honest Answer)

If God is good, really good, and God is powerful, really powerful, then why is there so much suffering? Why the wars? Why the cancer? Why the child who never gets to grow up? Why your pain right now that made you type this into a search bar at whatever time it is.

You've probably been told an answer that felt like a slap. Everything happens for a reason. God won't give you more than you can handle. It's all part of the plan. Some of that is not even in the Bible.

I want to do something different. I want to give you the honest answer, the one scripture actually gives, even when it's harder than a slogan and better than nothing at all. Because the Bible is not embarrassed by suffering. It has an entire book about a righteous man tortured for no reason he could see. It has a savior described in advance as a man of sorrows.

And it has a god who did not stand at a safe distance from human pain. He entered it. Stay with me. This one matters. Here is the question in its strongest form.

It's called the problem of evil. And it goes back at least 2,300 years to Epicurus. If God is willing to stop evil but can't, he's not all powerful. If he can but won't, he's not all good. So which is it?

That's not a straw man. That's the real question. Pew research found that about one in seven American adults says the suffering in the world is an indication that there is no God. And Bara found that human suffering is one of the top three reasons people of no faith walk away from Christianity. If you are wrestling with this, you are not alone and you are not weak.

Now here is the first thing to notice. Even asking that question requires standing on something. If there is no God, there is no ultimate standard by which the Holocaust is evil instead of just unfortunate. The mathematician and Christian apologist John Lennox, no lightweight, puts it this way. If there is no good, there is no evil.

The problem of evil vanishes intellectually. But you say, "I'm not satisfied with that." Good. I'm not either. Even the atheist cannot fully be an atheist about evil. But that's not enough.

We still have to explain why. Scripture gives a layered answer. Not one cause, several. One, some suffering is the direct consequence of human evil, wars, abuse, murder, corruption, neglect. About 80% of Americans intuitively know this.

Pew found that 8 in 10 adults agree that most suffering in the world comes from the actions of people, not from God. This is not God's fault. It is ours. And if God interveneed to stop every human choice to hurt another human, he would have to remove the freedom that also makes love possible. Two, some suffering is what the Bible calls the groaning of creation.

Romans 8 22 says, "The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now." The world we live in is not the world as originally designed. Earthquakes, cancers, floods. Paul says creation itself is dislocated. It is groaning like a woman in labor. Which means second, it is groaning towards something, toward a new creation.

Three, some suffering is caused by the limited but real agency of evil, what the Bible calls the accuser. Job did not know what happened in the throne room of Job 1. He just knew the fire fell. Evil is not equal to God. It is on a leash.

But the leash is real. And while it exists, suffering will exist. For in some suffering, this is the honest part. We simply are not told. When Jesus was asked, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" He answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned." Sometimes the biblical answer to why is not for the reason you're assuming.

Stop blaming yourself. Stop blaming the person suffering. The Bible has a whole book about undeserved suffering. And it does something remarkable. God never explains himself to Job.

Job is called blameless and upright. God himself brags on him. Then in a scene Job never sees, God permits the accuser to strip Job of his 10 children, his wealth, his health, and his community. Job's friends spend 35 chapters trying to convince him he must have secretly sinned. The book calls their theology wrong.

When God finally speaks, he does not give Job an answer. He gives Job a whirlwind of questions. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? And Job's response is not, "Now I get it." His response is, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." Job did not need an answer. He needed God, and he got him.

That is one of the hardest and most important lessons in scripture. Sometimes what God gives the sufferer is not information. It is himself. Here is the verse people quote at funerals and often wound each other with. Romans 8:28.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Let me tell you what it does not say. It does not say all things are good. It does not say God caused this specific evil that broke your life to teach you a specific lesson. It does not say the pain will feel light in the moment.

Here is what it does say. The Greek word Paul uses for we know is a word about a settled conclusion after weighing evidence. Paul is not being sentimental. He is doing math. He looks at his own life.

Five beatings, three shipwrecks, a night and a day floating in the sea, imprisonment, and he says, "I have weighed the sufferings of this present time against the glory that is coming, and the two are not on the same scale." And two verses before, all things work together for good, Paul says this, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Read that again. When you can't pray, the Spirit prays inside you in groans without words. That is not a God who is aloof from suffering.

That is a God on his knees inside you. Christianity's deepest answer to suffering is not a theory. It is a wound. At Golgtha, God the Son was betrayed by a friend, tortured by an occupying army, abandoned by his closest disciples, and killed by state execution. Isaiah described him seven centuries in advance as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And earlier at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, the shortest verse in the Bible tells us this. Jesus wept. Even though he knew he was about to raise Lazarus in 5 minutes, he still stood at the grave of a friend and cried. The Greek word John uses for what was happening inside Jesus, embramm is a word for indignant anger. Jesus was both grieving and angry at what death does to the people he loves.

So when you stand at your grave, a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, a marriage, a dream, I need you to hear this. God is not standing off at a distance. He is standing with you. And he is grieving and he is angry at what death has done to the people he loves. Tim Keller writes it this way.

God brings fullness of joy, not just despite, but through suffering. Just as Jesus saved us not in spite of but because of what he suffered on the cross. This does not answer every single question about why one particular child gets cancer. But it answers the deepest question underneath every other question. Is God with me in this or against me?

The cross says with you bleeding beside you and rising ahead of you. If you are watching this in the middle of real suffering, here is what scripture actually gives you. One, you are not being punished. Only 4% of Americans think most suffering is punishment from God. And that number is low because it is not what the Bible teaches.

Some pain is a natural consequence of choices. But most suffering is not a bill God is making you pay. Jesus took the bill. Two, you are not alone. The spirit is praying inside you when you cannot form the words.

Psalm 34:18, the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart. Three, you are not without help. Get with a real church. Talk to a pastor. And if you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, severe depression, abuse, or any crisis, please talk to a trained professional today.

Faith and professional care are allies, never substitutes. Four, you are not without a future. Revelation 21:4. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.

There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Christianity does not primarily promise God will explain every death. It promises he will undo every death. If a friend is walking through this, do not lead with Romans 8:28. Lead with your presence.

Lead with tears. lead with silence. Job's friends were only helpful for the first seven days when they sat with him on the ground and no one spoke a word to him for they saw that his grief was very great. They ruined everything the moment they opened their mouths to explain. When the time is right and they ask, tell them God is not off in a corner.

He entered this and he is going to end it. Let me pray with you before you go. Father, you know the person watching this. You know the specific weight they are carrying tonight. The name of the person they lost.

The scan that came back wrong. The marriage that is breaking. The child who was hurting. The prayer that has felt unanswered for years. Lord, we are not going to pretend it does not hurt.

Jesus wept at a grave he was about to open. And so we bring our tears honestly to you. Thank you that you did not answer suffering with a slogan. You answered it with a cross. For the one watching who is at the edge, hold them.

For the one who has been told this is their fault, set them free. For the one who has stopped praying, pray for them right now by your spirit with the groans they cannot form. And when the day comes that you wipe every tear away, let them be there because of Jesus. Amen. If this helped you, share it with one person who is walking through something right now.

You probably already know who. Subscribe as we keep walking through the hardest questions people are actually asking and what the Bible actually says. Until then, God is nearer to you tonight than the pain that woke you up. That is not a slogan. That is a promise.

Transcript from the video's captions on YouTube.