Why Does God Allow Tragedy and Suffering?
Considering the way that we find ourselves these days; there’s illness, abuse, broken relationships, betrayal, sorrow, injuries, heartache, disappointment, crime and death. If you’re like me, you probably may have been asking the question, “Why? Why me? Why now?”
That “why” question goes back thousands of years even in the Old Testament by Job and the writers of the Psalms, Ps 42:5 “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.”
Job 6:8 “Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!”
This question became more frequently asked during the 20th century, when we witnessed two World Wars, the Holocaust, genocides in the Soviet Union and China, devastating famines in Africa, in Nigeria, Boko Haram are raging hot, the killing fields of Cambodia, the emergence of AIDS, Ebola, Monkeypox, Covid-19 and many strains attached to it, raging hurricanes creating floods everywhere, the genocide in Rwanda and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
Aside natural disaster, there are also man-made disaster – The 21st Century didn’t start any better considering the 9/11 attack, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the civil revolutions in the middle east and Ukraine-Russia war, corruption in Africa that leaving many in abject poverty are add up for those whose loved ones paid the ultimate price to ask the ‘why’ question.
Why are all these things happening if there’s a loving and powerful God? Why do bad things happen to good people?
But if you’ve never asked why our world is infected with pain and suffering, you will when they strike you with full force or they come to a loved one. And Jesus told us that they are coming. Jesus was honest because He told us in John 16:33; ‘You will have suffering in this world…’ not that you might – He said
it is going to happen.
No one can understand God’s mind to ascertain the ‘why’ question because: ‘For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known ((1 Corinthians 13:12) (NIV)).’ I want us to know that this was the same question that the Israelites asked Moses; ‘why’ he brought them to the desert to die rather than left in Egypt to die as slaves. The bible makes it perfectly clear that; ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)’. It is not easy going through some of these things as humans but Paul in the above quotation lets us to know that God has the best intention for us no matter how much we hurt or hurting. Remember what the Prophet Jeremiah 1:5 and 29:11 say. We were chosen by Christ for a reason (John 15:16). As bad as it may sound, that reason why we ask ‘why’ may be God’s only way to take us to our promised land. Put your trust in God and ask Him to use your ‘why’ question to make you a better person.
PRAYER POINT:
Lord, use my ‘why’ question to enlighten my mind concerning Your plans for my life. Use it to bring me up and make me a better person always, in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ.
