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- The Problem of Pain
“If God is good, why is there evil in the world"?”
“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
“What kind of God would allow this to happen?”
If you’re a human being, you’ve probably wondered something along those lines at some point in your life.
They’re some of the toughest questions we have to wrestle with.
And they’re totally valid. If you believe that God is real, that He’s a God of love, and that His designs and intentions have always been “good,” then how do you explain the world we live in?
Tragedy strikes every single day.
It is impossible to escape bad news. It’s in the news, on TV, in our phones and conversations.
Whether it’s geopolitical terror or the news of a loved one getting diagnosed with cancer, the problem of pain seems to saturate every level of human experience.
So, we ask, what makes God good?
Job, a godly man from the Old Testament, suffered in many ways. He lost his home, all of his children and livestock, and was diseased. He lost everything, and it took him to the edge.
“Curse God and die,” his wife said to him.
He didn’t, but he sure came close. He had a lot to say to God about his own suffering and all the world’s injustice. Chapter after chapter, he lets God have it.
Then, out of a whirlwind, God answers Job’s complaints.
But not with what he wanted to hear. He didn’t give him the theological answer to why bad things happen. He didn’t explain why evil exists. Instead, he took Job on a cosmic tour through creation. He told him about animals and stars and the bottom of the ocean, things beyond Job’s understanding. He showed him the universe, and spoke:
Who is this who obscures my counsel
with ignorant words?
Get ready to answer me like a man;
when I question you, you will inform me.
Where were you when I established the earth?
God reminds Job that he, in fact, is not God. He is a mere mortal. He does not see the world through God’s eyes. His life is short and fleeting, and nothing he says or does can even begin to measure up to what God accomplishes.
There are answers to the problem of evil. We could get into the weeds of free will, or how pain is, as CS Lewis puts it, “God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
John Piper writes:
Job's pain is not the pain of the executioner's whip but the pain of the surgeon's scalpel. The removal of the disease of pride is the most loving thing God could do, no matter what the cost.
This is one of the best “answers” to the problem of evil that I’ve come across.
Still, God doesn’t tell Job any of this. Rather than a lesson in Christian doctrine, He offers Job a heavenly perspective.
He shows Job that humanity does not, and cannot, see the world as God sees it. We cannot do what He does or feel what He feels. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Instead, we have a call to faith.
Job recognizes this in some way:
I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted…
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.
He repents of his ignorance and decides to trust God.
God is a God of love, whether we recognize it or not, and He keeps His promises.
He will not fail us, though His plans are beyond us. Trust Him.
After all, He too has felt pain.
God has also suffered.
What’s more, His suffering was for us.
The blood He shed on the cross was not for nothing.
Don’t forget to tip your drivers.
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