Why Do People Suffer?

Scripture teaches that there are at least six different kinds of suffering

Why do people suffer? This is one of the great questions of our lives. We were made for life, for joy, for fellowship with God, for eternal life. We know in our hearts that something is wrong with this world of death, pain and grief. So why is there suffering?

Scripture teaches that there are at least six different kinds of suffering. The pain itself may look the same in each one, but the reason for the pain is not. And it is very helpful, when you are in the middle of suffering, to know which kind it is. So let us look closely at each of these six kinds of suffering.

The Judgment of God upon Those Who Do Not Know Christ

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)

The first kind of suffering is the holy and righteous judgment of God upon men and women who refuse Him. This is hard for modern ears to hear. We have grown accustomed to thinking of God only in terms of love, mercy and forgiveness. Of course, He is all of these things – infinitely so. But He is also holy and just. He is the righteous Judge of all the earth.

Notice carefully what Paul says in Romans 1:18. He does not say that the wrath of God will be revealed only in the future, although that is also true. He says it is being revealed now, today, from heaven, against the sin of men and women who suppress the truth they know in their hearts.

What truth do they suppress? Every human being was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). And in that image is a knowledge of right and wrong, a conscience, a sense that there is a God, a sense that this God is holy, a sense that we owe Him everything, a sense in our hearts that we are not living the way we should be living. The fall corrupted the image of God in us, but it did not erase it. It is still there in every person on earth, in some more faintly and in others more strongly, but it is always there. This is why every human being, in every culture, in every age, has had a sense of morality, a sense of the divine and a sense that something is wrong inside.

In their sin, men and women suppress this knowledge by their unrighteousness. They know there is a God, but they will not have Him rule over them. They know what is right, but they choose what is wrong. They suppress the truth and silence their conscience. They distract themselves with anything they can find to keep from facing the reality of God and their accountability to Him. This is the sin Paul is describing. It is not ignorance but willful suppression. It is the conscious and deliberate refusal of God.

Consequently, God, the righteous Judge of the universe, judges the willful sin of His creatures. He does this in eternity, and He also does it in this present age. Many of the afflictions and disasters that come upon the lost are expressions, even now, of the just wrath of God against the sin of those who refuse Him. God often weaves many purposes into a single event, and His judgment on sin is one of them.

This is the first kind of suffering. It is what every person outside of Christ will ultimately receive, unless God in His mercy intervenes through the Gospel and draws them to His Son.

The Chastisement of God upon Those He Loves

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.” (Hebrews 12:5-6)

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:10-11)

The second kind of suffering looks similar to the first from the outside, and the pain may be just as great. But the meaning is entirely different. The first kind is the final word of judgment on the lost. The second is the loving correction of a Father who loves His children.

Any good father chastises the children he loves. So when our heavenly Father sees His sons and His daughters going astray, He sometimes brings strong discipline into our lives to turn us back. It is not pleasant and can even be severe, but it is love. He is doing it for our good so that we may share His holiness. And when we respond rightly, the chastisement comes to an end and yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness in our lives.

God also chastises those who do not yet know Him, and this is not the same as His judicial wrath. It is a warning and a reaching out. He may chasten a city, a region, a nation, or an individual, in order to say, “Repent. Turn to Me while there is still time. There is still hope.” This is not the final word but a gracious and merciful word, even when it is painful, because His purpose is to turn people to Himself. As Paul writes:

Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

The Righteous Suffer Along with the Wicked

The third kind of suffering is when God brings judgment or chastisement upon the wicked, and the righteous, who happen to be there, suffer along with them. This happens often, and it is simply the way of the world.

Think of Jeremiah. He was a righteous man, walking with God, faithfully prophesying the Word of the Lord. When God finally judged Judah and Jerusalem in 586 BC and Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and carried the people into exile, Jeremiah was carried along with them. He did not deserve it and was not under the same judgment as the wicked. But Jeremiah was there when God’s judgment fell, and he suffered with the nation.

When there is a great judgment, it does not always sort itself out neatly between the righteous and the wicked. Sometimes God protects His own through such times in remarkable ways, and we have heard testimonies of this from believers in many parts of the world. But these are the exceptions. Usually, the righteous are simply caught up in what is happening to a city or a nation, and they suffer along with everyone else.

God does not leave His own children alone in these times. He draws near to them, encourages their hearts, strengthens them by His Spirit, and reminds them that they are His, that He sees them, and that He is with them in the middle of what is taking place in the world around them.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. (Isaiah 43:2)

The Righteous Suffer As They See Sin and Injustice

The fourth kind of suffering is one we may not at first think of as suffering, but Scripture treats it as such. It is the suffering of righteous men and women as they see the sin and injustice of the world around them.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:2-3)

Asaph, who wrote this psalm, is in pain. He looks around and sees the wicked prospering. He sees men and women who have no fear of God, who do whatever they please, and who seem to flourish while he, walking with God and paying the cost, is afflicted. The injustice of it grieves him deeply. By the end of the psalm he has worked through it. He goes into the sanctuary of God and discerns the end of the wicked, and his heart is settled. But the suffering was real, and the injustice he saw caused him real grief.

And if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard). (2 Peter 2:7-8)

Lot was not a perfect man, but Peter calls him righteous and tells us that he was tormented day after day in his righteous soul by the wickedness around him. He suffered as he saw what was going on around him. The ungodliness of his neighbors caused him real pain.

We also see this in the life of the Lord Jesus. When He looked at the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). When He drew near to Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it, knowing the judgment that was coming. When He stood at the grave of Lazarus, He groaned in His spirit and wept. The suffering of the world moved Him in His humanity, and from that grief He prayed and acted to redeem it.

You will know this kind of suffering as you walk with God. You will look at a lost world and feel the grief of God over it. You will see injustice and feel pain. You will see your friends and family running from the Lord and your heart will break. This is suffering, and it has a great purpose. The very weight of it, when you bring it to God, can become powerful intercession for those who are still lost. The pain leads you to your knees, and from there the power of God is released for the salvation of others.

The Righteous Are Persecuted for Their Faith

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Timothy 3:12)

The fifth kind of suffering is the suffering we receive directly because we belong to Christ. The New Testament mentions it many times. It is the normal experience of those who walk with the Lord Jesus, and every faithful believer will face it.

For most believers in the Western world, it is usually mild – a critical word here, a relational coolness there, the loss of an opportunity because of our faith. For believers in other parts of the world, it can be far more severe. There are men and women in prison cells today, because they have refused to deny the Name of Jesus, and there are believers under regimes that hate the Gospel who pay a great price to remain faithful.

What does Scripture tell us to do when this kind of suffering comes? We are not to feel sorry for ourselves, or to be offended, or to demand our rights.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

We are to rejoice and count it a privilege. The persecution itself is the gift of God, the mark He has given us that we belong to His Son. And it brings Him glory when we bear it well, when we love those who hate us, when we bless those who curse us, when we keep on walking with Him in spite of whatever they do.

The Dealings and Testings of God

The sixth kind of suffering is the broadest and, for many believers, the most personally painful. It is suffering God allows when you have not caused it, when it is not persecution or chastisement, and when there is no apparent reason for it.

The great example is Job. The book of Job is one of the oldest books in Scripture, and for nearly 4000 years it has stood declaring this truth: the righteous will sometimes suffer – and they will sometimes suffer terribly – when they do not deserve it.

And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to destroy him without reason.” (Job 2:3)

Job did not deserve what came upon him. That is the point of the book. God Himself testifies that Job was a blameless and upright man, and yet God allowed him to lose everything: his children, his wealth and his health. The meaning of the book is not that Job did something wrong and needed to find out what it was, although his three friends spent many chapters trying to convince him of that. The meaning of the book is that God allowed this terrible suffering for purposes Job did not understand and that God did not, even at the end, explain to him.

And what God asked of Job was the same thing He asks of every believer who suffers without cause: “Trust Me anyway!”

This is the sixth kind of suffering, and most of us know it well. It came when you were walking with God and serving Him, but then everything broke. The diagnosis came, the marriage failed, the child rebelled, the work collapsed, the friend betrayed you. You searched your heart for the cause and could not find it, because there was none. God was simply allowing in your life what He had allowed in Job’s life: a deep and unexplained suffering.

Why does God allow this? Scripture gives several answers.

First, God allows this kind of suffering for your good. But His definition of your good and yours are not the same. Your idea of your good is shaped by time, but His is shaped by eternity. You are concerned about the next month, while He is concerned about the world to come. You are concerned about your comfort, your happiness, and getting through this; He is concerned about your character, your holiness, and preparing you to reign with His Son. When you grasp this, much of what does not make sense will start to find meaning.

Second, the good God is working in you through this suffering has a far greater purpose – His own glory. He is building a Bride for His Son for the praise of His Son’s Name in eternity. You are part of that Bride. The work He is doing in you is for that glory, and your eternal good is woven into it. The two are deeply connected.

Third, sometimes God explains the reason for what He allows and sometimes He does not. Job never received an explanation. God did not say, “Job, here is what happened between Me and Satan. Here is the larger purpose. Now you understand.” He said, in effect, “I am God. You are not. Trust Me.” And Job laid his hand on his mouth and was silent before Him. That is the right response, and that is true faith – trusting Him when you do not understand.

Fourth, God will not allow you to be tested beyond what you can bear.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

The fact that you are still here, still standing, still in Him, is His own testimony that He is holding you. He is not destroying you but testing you, refining you and deepening you. By His grace you will come through, refined in the fire:

… so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:7)

And finally, this kind of suffering is the school of faith. In chastisement, you know what is happening: God is dealing with sin. In persecution, you know what is happening: you are being attacked for the Name of Jesus Christ. But in this kind of suffering, you do not know what is happening – and that is the point. You are being asked to trust God in the dark, to walk with Him without a map, to love Him for who He is rather than for what He explains. This is the deepest kind of faith.

These are the six kinds of suffering Scripture teaches. They are not always neatly separated. God is the great Master Weaver, and He weaves many of His purposes together in a single event in our lives. A single experience of suffering may carry the chastisement of God in one strand, the testing of God in another, the privilege of persecution in a third, and the grief of seeing sin and injustice in a fourth. He is God, and He is able to do this. We are unlikely to understand all of it, but we do not have to.

When suffering comes upon a city, a region, a nation, or upon you personally, do not rush to give a single, simple explanation of what God is doing. Be careful of those who say, “This is the wrath of God, plain and simple,” and equally careful of those who say the opposite, “God had nothing to do with this.” Both are wrong. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father knowing about it and allowing it. He is not absent or asleep. He is the sovereign God of all things, and He has many purposes He is working out at the same time.

What does God expect of you in suffering? He does not expect you to be the great prophetic commentator on every event, nor to know which of the six kinds, or which combination of them, is at work in any given situation. He expects you to fear Him, to repent if you need to, to weep over those who perish, to draw near to Him, and to trust Him.

This is true faith – not the kind that always understands, that always sees a way through, or that has all the answers, but the kind that, when the night is dark and the storm is loud and no answer has come, still says: He is God. He is good. He is wise. He is loving. He is for me. I will trust Him.

You can trust Him. He is infinitely wise and infinitely good. His purposes for you and for the building of His Bride are perfect. His knowledge of every storm in every life of every one of His children, and how it all fits together, is complete. Nothing is wasted, nothing is random, and nothing is outside His hand. There is meaning in your suffering even when you cannot see it, and there will be good that comes from it even when you cannot see how. He has said so, and He cannot lie.

So trust Him, walk with Him, look at Him, submit to Him, worship Him, surrender to Him, hold fast to Him. This is the meaning of faith in the Scriptures. Faith is not just confidence to speak to your storm. Faith is endurance, holding fast to God when you do not understand, walking with Him when you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, trusting Him anyway. This is biblical faith, and it is what He is forming in you through your suffering. It is precious to Him beyond gold.

Let’s pray together.

Father, we surrender to You. We give You our lives, all that we are and all that we have. We give You our suffering. We give You the things that have happened to us that we did not understand, that we did not deserve, that we did not see coming. We give them to You. They are in Your hand. They were always in Your hand.

Lord, You are infinitely wise. Your purposes for us are infinitely good. We do not always understand them. But we recognize that this is the meaning of faith. We are willing to trust You without understanding, to walk with You in the dark, to love You and serve You whether or not You explain to us what You are doing.

Father, where we have been chastened, give us grace to repent quickly and to turn back to You. Where we have been persecuted, give us grace to bless and not to curse, to count it the privilege it is. Where we have seen sin and injustice, turn the pain into intercession that releases the power of Your Spirit. Where we have suffered along with others in the storms that fall upon a nation or a city, hold us fast and let us not be shaken. And where we are walking through the deep dealings of Your hand upon our lives, where we do not understand and may never understand, teach us to trust You there too.

You are God; we are not. You see what we do not see, and You know what we do not know. Your eternal purposes are at work, and Your Bride is being made ready, and we are part of that great work, and so we yield to You. Have Your way in our lives, whatever it takes and whatever the cost. We trust You, we love You, and we worship You.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.