Featured Why does God Allow Christians to Suffer

Reading through the prophets with McGee's Thru the Bible radio program has been life changing. If I had had access to this material when I was losing my faith, my life would have taken a very different path.

I need to let that go, and understand that if God had wanted me to follow that path, he would have made it happen. I guess he wanted me to take this long side-trip and return as a prodigal, with a heart for the prodigals that I never would have had otherwise.

 

There is so much going on that is bigger than human understanding and we try to wrestle what we see into something something simpler and more modern and more human-centric than things are.

 

I think the OP actually answered the question. Why is there so much hardship in our world? First our harsh environment facilitates the lost seeking God as a refuge. Second, another cause of suffering is the evil people do. And we have our autonomous ability to choose to go with God, or our own way, and so God's plan of redemption, choosing those who love God, requires allowing limited choice. And finally, what about the suffering of those who have been born anew? Like Job, their response provides witness for being "all in" for God.

My Great Grandmother was a Christian lady, who had prayed for her grandchildren every day. Yet, she had cancer and was wasting away almost alone, in her bed in a small Colorado town. She prayed to God that she had suffered enough and for God to take her. Yet she continued to suffer. And she continued to pray....

Now she is in a place where there are no more tears... Praise God

 

The great thing is that God never abandons his children. Though we walk away and squander our inheritance on ourselves, yet God waits, and even goes to get his lost sheep, because he has promised "never will I leave you nor will I forsake you."

God may ordain suffering for a season according to his perfect plan. We will be required to carry the cross when we follow our King. We will be hated by those who hate our King. Yet, God has promised us the crown of life.

We are strengthened, not by our experience, but by our faith, which is made strong by our theology (knowledge of God). When we know what God reveals regarding his character and trust this truth, we are strengthened in the fight.

God is good all the time and all the time God is good.

 

Jesus is God Charles.

The very definition of forgiveness is one word. Suffering.

When a sin is committed axiomatically a debt is created. That debt will ultimately always be paid. Either the offender pays for it or the offended party pays for the debt because the debt remains.

When a person pays for the wrong committed against them by someone else what they are doing or saying is “you are no longer liable for damaging me” and “I am going to replace what was taken from me by paying for it myself.” That is the epitome of suffering.

When David cut the robe of Saul David continued to suffer by Saul’s previous actions and his future ones. But David took no pleasure upon hearing of the death of Saul, David chose to endure the emotional spiritual and psychological damage Saul had inflicted upon him and he endured that pain silently and willingly.

In this example if David were to have celebrated the death of Saul then David would not truly have forgiven him because in that intellectual disloyalty and in that moment David would not have owned all of the things that Saul had done to David and had taken from David. Thus in order to forgive anything suffering is required and experienced.


Joy unspeakable full of glory

 

There was a time in my life when I was suicidal and just in a very very dark place. I feel like God allowed me to go through that so that I could help others and understand what others may go through better.

 

Who paid the debt created by sin? Then Christ suffered not for his own sin but for the sin of the world. Therefore he suffered because forgiveness requires it.


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If the epitome of forgiving is defined as suffering perhaps that’s the reason so men can learn pain suffering and forgiveness


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2 Samuel 12:13
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

"Adonai has put away your sin; you shall not die."
What a powerful statement of God's grace toward David. God allows (ordains) all the events with Bathsheba and Uriah to take place. God, right after the verse I shared, tells David that his son, from Bathsheba, would die, yet God chooses to "put away David's sin." There are many parallels to our own lives as God ordains events to happen in our lives. Yet, because God has adopted us, God also chooses to put away our sin.

Romans 8:25-39
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.