How could we ever choose God if we never had a choice put in front of us? How could we ever learn to trust God if we never had to suffer?
If God is good, how can He allow suffering? How can He allow cancer? How can He allow people to lose everything and live poor? How can he allow people to be born with mental illness, sexual illness, or physical disability?
From the Bible itself, how could God throw Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden? How could God allow Job to lose everything, and not only lose everything but have his best friends come and lecture him? How could God allow Joseph son of Jacob to be sold into slavery, taken to a foreign land, and unjustly thrown into prison there? How could God ask Mary to be the mother of a child that would be seen as illegitimate, in a culture that would stone her to death? How could Jesus let himself and most all of his closest friends and followers be killed and martyred?
Didn't God love them?
To quote Star Wars: "Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view"
Where suffering comes from is a complex question, that I don't even understand. In simplest terms, suffering is the result of a turning away from God. It's not only your turning away but you are also affected by Adam and Eve's turning away, other people's turning away and by Satan's turning away.
What you do with suffering depends greatly on our point of view. To ask God why He allows suffering is one response to suffering. It rejects the suffering and does not get anything in the end except resentment toward God and a lack of trust in Him.
The other point of view is that suffering is a blessing. For me, I tend to forget to talk to God in good times and more remember to talk to God when I'm not feeling well. How can you ask God for grace to get through something if getting through it is easy for you? God takes us where we are and as we are. There is hope in this point of view because there is trust in God. Trust that God will use the suffering to help us become His people and suffering to help others. In this point of view, it is a great blessing to be poor, to be martyred, to be given a desire to do evil, or to be sick. The only place to turn is God.
Suffering is not fun & I don't want to say suffering is a good thing in itself. But changes cause suffering, and if you want to change then you must get through the suffering to get there. The Marines have a saying "Pain is Weakness leaving the Body." Well... suffering is leaving your self-centeredness and becoming God-centered. Suffering is self-centeredness leaving the body. If I have the right attitude about it.
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