Discover your next steps toward a relationship with God. God says, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth” (ESV), using a Hebrew word meaning “to increase.” The pain of childbirth would be more than before. AWAKE! But is that what the Bible teaches? We realize our need for God. “During all their distress it was distressing to him,” says the Bible. God is the same way. God and Pain For centuries, man has tried to explain why such a condition is part of the natural order. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”2, Look at the ancient Israelites for example. Really we do not know much about the causes of pain, and it may be that we attribute to God much that we ourselves produce. Some blame fate, saying that’s just the way the stars have lined up. Everyone experiences pain. Regarding that time, the Bible promises that God “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. Genesis 1:31 says God saw all that He had made and it was very good," he continued. As a son, I’ve stood at the end of my mother’s bed—my hand on her foot, my vision blurry—as her two-year battle with cancer came to an end. [This gives us cause to stop and think what we are doing to God when we deliberately sin especially after having the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ!] Numerous times God allowed pagan rulers to attack, punish, and persecute his people in an effort to get them to turn away from their sinful choices and develop the understanding that life apart from God is painful and hopeless.3. Many reach a conclusion similar to this: If there is a loving, all-powerful God, he would rid the world of evil now. published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thus, they believe that God causes us to suffer. Publication download options This question has caused countless people to evaluate their faith, question their beliefs, and, in some cases, abandon the idea that there is a God at all. It might even cost Chuck the correct usage of that wrist and hand, maybe permanently. For example, one writer cites what he calls God’s “apparent lack of mercy or pity in reaction to our suffering.” This writer argues that if God exists, he must view humans with “pitiless indifference.”. In fact, our suffering is a sign of God's love. You are the who hurt … To let us see the gravity of our choices. According to the Bible, God will bring an end to the suffering of every human on the planet. In the New Testament, God made Elymas the sorcerer blind as part of a power encounter (see Acts 13:6-12). Since he does not, there must not be a God—and if there is, he is either not loving or not all-powerful, either of which makes him unworthy of our worship. Find purpose behind your pain. Matthew 8:16-17 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove … God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. TERMS OF USE Share While our natural reaction to pain is to avoid it, get rid of it, or numb it; we need to realize that God allows pain. As the great author Jane Austen wrote, “We do not suffer by accident.”4 Suffering is a perspective-changer. For example, God was sincerely troubled when his ancient worshippers faced trials. Looking at the biblical description of God’s character and being, the short answer to the question of God causing suffering must be no. No, for Jehovah promises: “The former things will not be called to mind, nor will they come up into the heart.”​—Isaiah 65:17. No matter what the immediate cause, the usual outcomes of sickness are pain, suffering and death, all the works of Satan. Reply. In the Christian belief, the answer to the above question is Satan. “Therefore we do not lose heart. God feels for us when we suffer. The pain was amplified. Based on this understanding of God, we see that inflicting suffering on his creation would contradict God’s fundamental nature. When the opposite is true, our need for divine assistance becomes crystal clear. Great post. We do know in Lamentations that He does not "willingly afflict the sons of men."  |  As a reporter, I’ve stood in the middle of a darkened highway, felt the heat of a car fire on my skin, and seen the tears in the eyes of veteran paramedics and firefighters as they pulled the body of a seven-year-old girl out of the wreckage. Copyright © 2021 Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. First John 4:8 says simply and concisely: “God is love.”. The actions of Israel in the desert as they rebelled against God caused God to be in pain, pain so deep it could be considered as torture. It’s through suffering that we begin to look beyond the shallow confines of this life and peek out into eternity—to the glorious salvation that awaits all who believe in Jesus Christ. By means of his heavenly Kingdom, Jehovah will drastically change the human condition​—for the better. Even when sickness is not directly from God, He will still use it according to His perfect will. Read verse in New Century Version PRIVACY POLICY, https://assetsnffrgf-a.akamaihd.net/assets/m/102015009/univ/art/102015009_univ_sqr_xl.jpg, https://assetsnffrgf-a.akamaihd.net/assets/a/g/E/201501/wpub/g_E_201501_lg.jpg. If God does not cause us to suffer, then who or what does? Far from depicting God as pitiless or indifferent, the Bible teaches that God is deeply moved by our suffering​—and that he will soon bring an end to it. Likewise, the “pruning” or difficult times in … (Isaiah 63:9) Although God is vastly superior to humans, he feels empathy for those who suffer​—as if their pain were in his heart! How Did Life Begin? This verse says that God does not willingly bring pain into people’s lives. Audio download options Those people were causing more pain than their destruction would cause. The Bible clearly teaches that God does not cause us to suffer. Some think that God is indifferent to our trials. THE LORD CAUSES GRIEF. God will bring them back to life here on earth so that they too can enjoy life free from suffering. There is no reason to believe that causing pain and suffering is necessarily evil if done by God. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. God sometimes allows sin and/or Satan to cause physical suffering. Copy and paste the code below into your website. Does God cause this suffering? In the Old Testament, leaders like Moses had to remove their shoes or veil their faces to be anywhere in the vicinity of God, because the very space that God occupied was holy. Some say that everything that happens is God’s will. 11:30). In Corinth some believers were sick and some had died as a result of abusing the Lord’s supper (see I Cor. As the great theologian C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”1. The former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) What about those who have already died? Our pain has a purpose How Did Life Begin? AWAKE! It is the place where power happens between God and us.” —Joni Eareckson Tada in “When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty” No one has suffered more than our Father in heaven. God is not the creator of evil, pain, and suffering. There are those that cite passages of scripture pertaining to “suffering” for the cause of Christ, as a justification to live miserable lives expecting pain and suffering. Why does God allow pain and suffering? 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