Several years ago, a friend and I were catching up and swapping stories about life. We talked about family, health, and I shared a few stories about how things felt hard. I remember her looking directly at me and saying, “I hate that Satan has heaped all this suffering upon you.” I honestly don’t remember what I said in response because I was so rattled by her statement.
How did my friend know that Satan was responsible for my troubles? Is all suffering from Satan? Is God responsible for some of it? Any of it? What exactly is the relationship between God, Satan, sin, the fallen world, suffering and myself?
This conversation with my friend launched me on a personal quest to get some answers about the cause of suffering, and in the process, I opened up a giant can of worms called Theodicy.
Theodicy is essentially an attempt to explain the coexistence of God and evil. If God is good and powerful, why does evil exist? Is He too weak to prevent it? Does He simply not care enough to stop it? These are the questions that kept me up at night.
Some people think it is unwise to investigate the cause of our suffering. They believe we risk doing great emotional and spiritual harm to ourselves (or others) by thinking too deeply about these matters, so it’s best not to think about them at all.
Agree to disagree.
The perceived source of our pain greatly impacts the ways in which we endure our suffering.
I was talking with a woman the other day who told me, “God has made His choices in my life and no amount of prayer will make a difference, He has ruled against me. I now view God as one to be feared.” My heart broke for her. In her eyes, God is the sole source of her pain – He is a cosmic monster who enjoys throwing firebombs on her life from time to time. I longed to help broaden the horizon of her views on suffering.
This post isn’t meant to be an in-depth look at the nature of suffering, rather an encouragement to simply take a step back and examine who or what we blame for our suffering. Where do we think our suffering comes from?
The Bible shows us that there are far more conclusions to draw other than, “God is mean” and “I brought this on myself.” Throughout the Old and New Testament, our fallen world (Gen 3:1-19, Matt 15:19), Satan (Luke 22:31, Luke 4:6, 1John 5:19), our flesh (Romans 7:5, 8:6), sin (Luke 17:1-2, Romans 5:12, James 1:15), and evil/evil spirits (Luke 8:2, 11:26, Acts 19:16, Eph 6:12) are the most likely culprits for our pain and suffering. The Bible simply doesn’t show a God who randomly smites people for no good reason or a God who delights in doling out difficult circumstances to His people.
Do I believe God is responsible for some suffering? Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m still thinking about that one and my answer changes all the time – and that’s ok! I think there is biblical evidence for God having a hand in some suffering, but not all suffering. Honestly, I think it’s good that I haven’t come to any conclusions about this because it keeps me thinking, wondering and asking God about it, which is healthy and normal and good.
Nowadays, I still fully believe in God being sovereign and overseeing my life, but I also know that His sovereignty does not mean He takes responsibility for all of our suffering. I have come to have a much broader view of the etiology of suffering. I quite enjoy blaming Satan for some of my troubles and I definitely know our fallen world is culpable for a lot of it too.
God loves us dearly and He longs to comfort us as we navigate this landmine-riddled world. His heart is kind, and He never rejoices when His children are hurting. Jesus is our constant companion in our struggles. He is well-acquainted with suffering and he readily enters into it with us again and again.
We don’t need to have all the answers to where our suffering comes from (spoiler alert: we’ll never have all the answers!), but it is important to at least ask questions about the nature of our suffering. Do we blame God? Do we blame ourselves? Do we take the fallen world into account? Our answers to these questions profoundly influence the way in which we deal with our pain and relate to God.
My prayer is that this post doesn’t open a can of worms for you, but encourages you to simply think broadly about the assumptions you hold about where your suffering originated. If you find yourself blaming God, talk to Him about it. He can handle anything you have to say and I know He would love to help gently guide you towards thinking through other possible possibilities.
If you are interested diving deeper into the questions behind suffering or theodicy, I highly recommend If God Is Good by Randy Alcorn and Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller.
