God Is Good. So Why Does Life Hurt So Much?

By Pastor John Erickson

There was a time when suffering became painfully personal for me. It was not a situation involving my family or the church, but it had gotten under my skin. I was losing sleep. I could not eat.

You know it is a big deal when I miss a meal.

I remember weeping in front of the cross. I was trying to put words around something that, in that moment, felt much bigger than words.

There was also a little bit of peace. I do not know how to explain it neatly. The pain did not disappear. But I felt close to the Lord in it.

That experience did not solve the problem of suffering for me. It reminded me why the Christian answer cannot be reduced to a clever sentence.

The question deserves more than a slogan

If God is good and powerful, why does he allow so much pain?

That is not a question reserved for people outside the faith. People who love God ask it too. Scripture gives those questions space.

We live in a world marked by sin, death, injustice, illness, and loss. Sometimes we can trace suffering to a harmful decision. Sometimes another person's choices wound us. Sometimes the cause is something we cannot explain.

The general reality of a broken world does not tell us the specific reason for every tragedy.

When somebody loses a child, "God has a plan" is not a substitute for compassion. When someone has been abused, they need protection and care. They do not need us to turn their suffering into a quick lesson about character development.

We should be careful about giving explanations God has not given us.

Jesus interrupts the search for someone to blame

In John 9, the disciples encounter a man who has been blind from birth. They ask whether his blindness resulted from his sin or his parents' sin.

They want a cause that fits inside a familiar moral calculation.

Jesus refuses their either-or explanation. Neither the man nor his parents should be assigned that blame. Jesus turns the conversation toward God's work and restores the man's sight.

The passage does not authorize us to tell every suffering person that God injured them to create an illustration. It challenges the confidence with which we can assign guilt from the outside.

It also asks where our attention is going. Am I trying to explain somebody's pain so that I can feel less unsettled? Or am I ready to move toward that person with care?

There are questions we cannot settle. There is often love we can offer.

Some reasons remain beyond us

Joseph eventually sees how God has worked through a history that included betrayal and slavery. He can tell his brothers that what they intended for harm, God intended for good.

That is a remarkable testimony. It is not permission to call their betrayal good.

Job gives us a different kind of encounter. God speaks, but Job does not receive a detailed explanation of why each loss happened.

Both stories belong in our understanding. Sometimes we begin to see how God has redeemed a painful situation. Sometimes we remain without the explanation we want.

Faith does not require pretending the second experience is the first.

Paul describes our present knowledge as partial. I find that humbling, and also strangely relieving. I am allowed to trust God without claiming to understand everything he understands.

Hope makes room for groaning

Romans 8 does not describe creation as mildly inconvenienced. Creation groans, and God's people groan too. Even those who have the Spirit wait for the redemption of their bodies.

That is an important correction to the idea that a healthy Christian life should be free of anguish.

Paul speaks about future glory with deep confidence. He also makes room for present pain. His hope does not depend on denying what hurts.

He uses the image of childbirth: suffering alongside an anticipation of life. That image should not be used to minimize bereavement or promise that every individual loss will be replaced with an equivalent good. Paul is looking toward God's final restoration.

We are waiting for something we cannot yet see in full.

In the same chapter, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Even when words fail, we are not left to carry our prayers alone.

God does not watch from a safe distance

The cross does not answer every question I have about suffering. It does tell me something I cannot afford to forget.

The God Christians worship has entered human suffering in Jesus.

Our central symbol is not a display of distant strength. It is the place where Christ gave himself in love. The resurrection declares that death will not have the final word, but it does not make the wounds imaginary.

That is why I can bring my pain to him without needing to clean it up first.

We can ask for healing, seek treatment, accept practical help, lament honestly, and keep hoping. Those responses do not compete with each other.

I still wish I understood more. I still wish some prayers had received a different answer. But I am learning that not having an explanation is different from having no one beside me.

There at the cross, with the tears and the unfinished questions, I was not alone.