Today man likes to refer to the “problem of human suffering.” Entire libraries could be filled with the writings of men over the years who have concluded that God cannot exist, or at least is not what the Bible portrays Him as being, because of the “problem of human suffering.” A loving God “letting” people suffer has given folks tremendous problems over the years. Yet there is something to consider that man simply does not like to think about today. When God created this world everything in it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In the second chapter of Genesis God created man and woman. Only one thing seems to have been forbidden them and that was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And yet man chose to break God’s law and disobey Him (Genesis 3). It was at this point that death and decay entered the world and it all happened because man chose to sin.

I suppose I could write page after page discussing questions concerning why God continues to allow suffering and why, if suffering is man’s punishment for sin, God does not just force man to obey Him instead of allowing him to choose. That would then lead to page after page discussing the nature and scope of human free will. In the end it all comes back to one thing: man just does not think that it is fair that he should have to suffer for disregarding a power unfathomably greater than himself. I am truly sorry that suffering is in this world and I wish that people did not have to go through it. I and my family have had to feel the sting of suffering on more than one occasion and it is not a pleasant experience.

However, it is high time that man does something that is very difficult for him to do. It is time for man to take the spotlight off of himself and turn it toward God. You know, I wonder sometimes if the dishonest and unscrupulous businessman, who cheats his customers at every opportunity, ever lies in bed at night and, reflecting upon his dishonesty, momentarily questions why it is that he is allowed to go on long this? One could insert any dishonest and abusive individual in the place of this businessman and the answer will remain the same. “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9). How incredibly humbling, and shaming, to understand that God is watching and observing all that man does, giving all time to repent and come to Him. God is watching man, His creation, use their free will to kill one another in cold blood. He is watching man steal from each other. He is watching man extort and blackmail one another. He is watching man defile and ruin his body, which was created for service to the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:13), with alcohol, sex, and drugs.

How far has mankind fallen when he can ignore the pain he is causing God and worry only about the fact that he has to suffer as he disregards God’s will at every turn? Where did man get the idea that God owes him anything at all? Why cannot man understand that perhaps his suffering is here to tell him something? And yet, day after day passes and more and more people bemoan the fact that suffering exists therefore proving that God does not exist or, in the every least, that He is not the loving God as portrayed in the Scriptures. I cannot help but think of Paul’s words in the first part Romans 9:20: “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?”

For those of us who are Christians, let us consider our conduct. One of the saddest couple of verses in the entire Bible is Matthew 23:37-38, where we find our Lord lamenting over Jerusalem. He says: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, you house is left to you desolate.” God forbid that I, who have tasted the goodness of the Lord and have felt the richness of His mercy, would contribute to that stream of tears on His cheek by conducting myself in a sinful manner! Whenever I sin and fall short of the Lord, I cannot help but imagine locking eyes with Him as He hangs upon the cross and struggling to hold back the tears as He turns away from me, agony and disappointment etched upon His face.