It is not merely philosophical, but deeply personal to many.
Many a hospital ward, graveside, broken marriage, chronic illness, and anxious night triggers the same thought, and presses the same question upon the human conscience: if God is good, why does He permit suffering?
I personally wrestled with the question for years. During seasons of prolonged weakness and illness, life often felt painful and, at times, incomprehensible. Suffering often appeared random, purposeless, and disconnected from any design or deliberate intent.
What I failed to do for much of my life, however, was the very thing Scripture consistently commands – to interpret life through God’s revealed Word rather than interpret God through my circumstances.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105 LSB).
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5,6 LSB).
The Bible never asks us to pretend suffering is easy. However, it does insist that suffering is never outside God’s sovereign purpose, even when its specific purpose remains hidden from us.
A Misunderstood Promise
One of the verses most frequently quoted by Christians is Romans 8:28 (LSB): “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
This verse is often understood to mean believers will eventually experience favourable life outcomes: restored health, resolved circumstances, or visible earthly blessing. This is not what the text is teaching. Scripture itself defines the “good” in the very next verse:
“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29 LSB).
The rest of the New Testament confirms that the “good” is conformity to Christ: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 LSB), and “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13 LSB).
God’s purpose in salvation is not merely to forgive sinners and secure their eternal destiny, but to restore His image in us (Genesis 1:27; Colossians 3:10). Scripture repeatedly teaches that suffering is one of God’s appointed means to establish this outcome.
Jesus never promised a worry-free life; He said we would suffer: “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33 LSB). Yet, in the same verse, He adds for our comfort: “but take courage, I have overcome the world”.
God does not promise a pain-free life, but He promises a life that has purpose: for our good, and to His glory. Christian comfort is therefore not the removal of suffering, but the certainty of victory through Christ.
The Purpose of Suffering
The Bible teaches that suffering sanctifies the believer and produces spiritual maturity: “And not only this, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:3-5 LSB). This is not some philosophical or psychological optimism, but rather a theological chain inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul is teaching that affliction is used by God to produce endurance, proven character, and hope. This is the sanctifying pattern that God ordains for believers.
God is never surprised by suffering. It may be experienced as an ordinary consequence of living in a fallen creation. Whatever the cause, in His providence He governs it and uses it for His purposes – sometimes as discipline, sometimes as refinement, sometimes as participation in Christ’s sufferings, but always under God’s sovereign care and ultimately that we might be drawn closer to Him and sanctified in His image.
Let’s think in more detail about those different purposes.
a) Fatherly discipline:
In Hebrews, the author quotes Proverbs 3:11,12 when he exhorts: “my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for those whom the LORD loves he disciplines, and he flogs every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6 LSB). The purpose is then given: “so that we may share His holiness” (v.10).
In this context, the Bible describes some hardships not as random or arbitrary intrusions, but as fatherly training within God’s covenant care of His children. For His children, even painful discipline is a gift – not because suffering itself is pleasant, but because through suffering God draws His people nearer to Himself. This does not mean that every suffering corresponds to a specific sin, but that no suffering in the life of God’s children falls outside His fatherly care.
The discipline is not condemnation, nor is it punishment of the believer. Christ bore our curse and punishment (Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:5,6). There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1), and for this we should rejoice and give thanks to our gracious God and loving heavenly Father.
Fatherly discipline is loving correction and aimed at producing holiness. God cares more about our holiness than our worldly happiness, or temporary earthly comfort.
b) Refinement:
“Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance. And let perseverance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4 LSB). Peter reiterates and expands on this, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6,7 LSB). Faith, like gold, is refined through fire. Trials do not produce saving faith, but reveal and refine the faith God Himself preserves.
c) A privilege accompanying salvation:
“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29 LSB). In context, this speaks especially of suffering for Christ – rejection, opposition, or loss because of Him – granted as a privilege that unites believers more closely to their Lord. Not all suffering is persecution, yet all suffering belongs within God’s providence and cannot derail His salvific purpose (Philippians 1:6).
d) Proving God’s presence
Christians will rarely escape some form of hardship in this life, and Scripture never promises a life of health or wealth, free from affliction. However, we do read of the promises of God to be with us through our suffering:
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2 LSB).
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1 LSB).
Scripture also teaches us that God will never leave, nor forsake His children (Hebrews 13:5; Joshua 1:5; Deuteronomy 31:6,8).
Comfort for the Christian comes, not from stoic self-mastery, but from communion with God. He is sovereign, in control and ever with us, meaning that we will not be overwhelmed. The Apostle Paul proved this truth over and over again. We read of his stoning, and much more in the Acts of the Apostles, and especially in his second letter to the Corinthians, yet Paul calls his sufferings “light” when weighed against eternal glory – not because they were short-lived or insignificant but because eternity is immeasurably longer and the glory that awaits is immeasurably weightier (2 Corinthians 4:17).
e) Sanctification
Sanctification ultimately reorders love – from gifts to the Giver. The primary devotion shifts from the benefits of faith to God Himself. The Apostle Paul describes this as the surpassing value of Christ in Philippians 3:8-11 (LSB) “More than that, I count all things to be loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Everything can be counted loss because of the value of knowing Christ Jesus Himself. Christianity does not promise God plus a better life: It promises God as life.
The Christian Response to Suffering
Scripture never commands believers to enjoy pain, or to celebrate it, but we are commanded us to trust God within the suffering and pain. Job says, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15 LSB). Paul tells the Philippian Christians to take all to God: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6 LSB).
We give thanks not because suffering is pleasant, but because God remains faithful within it. We are exhorted to “in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 LSB). This thanksgiving is rooted in doctrine and in the providence of God.
Suffering can deeply wound and grieve believers, yet it cannot ultimately destroy God’s saving purpose in them (Ephesians 1:11; Romans 8:35-39). God governs all things, but what does this look like practically for us:
- Rather than despairing in our struggles or allowing anxiety to overwhelm us, we pray. The psalmist writes, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of distress; I shall rescue you, and you will glorify Me’” (Psalm 50:14,15 LSB).
- We do not abandon our faith, but rather endure: “Therefore, do not throw away that confidence of yours, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:35,36 LSB).
- We look to Christ rather than to self: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 LSB).
James makes clear that often God will answer our prayers for wisdom by shaping our character rather than giving direct information. He describes suffering in this way: “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance. And let perseverance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4 LSB). Verse 5 then tells us what we should do following this: “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
Wisdom “from above” (James 3:17) is learned, not by head knowledge, but through walking with God.
An Eternal Perspective
Very often, human suffering can feel almost unbearable. This is because we are prone to measure it against the current moment and time. However, Scripture measures it against eternity. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (LSB) informs us that “He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.”
The Apostle Paul writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18 LSB). It is not equal, not comparable. As already noted, this is paralleled and expanded upon in 2 Corinthians 4:17,18 (LSB): “For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
The contrast is deliberate: present suffering is momentary in comparison. Paul does not minimise the weight, but he relativises it. The future for the believer is weighty, eternal, and glorious!
Christian hope is future-oriented: “Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13 LSB). We do this because “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20 LSB). God often ordains suffering to loosen our grip on this world and fix our hope on the world to come in Christ.
A personal response to suffering
For years I lived as a nominal Christian – outwardly religious but inwardly distant from God. Yet He remained faithful to His covenant promises: “If we are faithless, He remains faithful” (2 Timothy 2:13 LSB). We know that when we have been justified, our glorification (Romans 8:30) is not dependent upon ourselves, but “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6 LSB).
Even discipline became mercy: “Before I was afflicted I went astray” (Psalm 119:67 LSB). Suffering did not reveal God’s absence. It revealed my dependence upon Him: “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 LSB).
The greatest gift which suffering gave to me was not endurance, explanation, or even relief. It was God Himself. One of the verses from Psalms that has spoken profoundly to me, and that I give thanks for – and pray most days – is: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart fail, But God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25,26 LSB).
During a prolonged hospital stay, I struggled daily simply to endure physically. My husband, who is not a Christian, asked me: “How can you still believe in God?”
Ironically, in that season, when life outwardly made the least sense from a human perspective, Scripture became so clear to me. I did not experience peace because suffering stopped. I experienced peace because suffering was no longer meaningless. Suffering had divine purpose and therefore became a reason for thanksgiving.
Paul describes this paradox: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” and “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9,10 LSB). God did not remove Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”; He redefined it from being an obstacle to become an instrument of purpose.
Christian peace does not come from explanation but from relationship:
“The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3 LSB).
“The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7 LSB).
Like Job, we may not understand God’s purposes: “I have declared that which I did not understand, things too marvellous for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3 LSB). We must learn to trust our God – the omniscient One, whose wisdom far exceeds ours.
A Final Hope
For the believer, suffering is never the final chapter. “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, strengthen, confirm, and ground you” (1 Peter 5:10 LSB).
Because Christ suffered first, suffering is no longer meaningless: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10 LSB).
“For to this you have been called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21 LSB).
Union with Christ means sharing His cross as well as His glory (Romans 8:17).
Invitation
Pause for a moment. Bring your burdens honestly before God: “Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” (Psalm 62:8 LSB). We do not pretend that pain is easy to bear, but we trust and know that He is good: “Yahweh is good, a strong defence in the day of distress, and He knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nahum 1:7 LSB).
We may not understand our suffering. We can take heart, as “The secret things belong to Yahweh our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29 LSB). We know the one who governs even what He permits. And in knowing God, we trust that, because He works all things according to His will, no suffering in the life of a believer is ever wasted (Ephesians 1:11; Romans 8:28).
“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, strengthen, confirm, and ground you. To Him be might forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:10 LSB).
