Why Does God Allow Suffering?

In August of 2020—which had already been a year of, well… everything—Lexi and I got some really incredible news.

A few months earlier, we had decided it was a good time to start a family. Why we thought that particular season was the right time, I honestly do not know. There was a global pandemic unfolding. I was three semesters into full-time seminary. She was climbing the ladder in her career. So naturally, we thought, you know what would make this even better? Let’s completely change our entire experience of life.

And then in August, just a few weeks before we were supposed to head out west on this big trip we had planned, we found out that we were having a baby.

And we were overwhelmed with joy.

You know those moments where the tears come before the words do? It was like that. We started calling family. We told our closest friends. We let ourselves begin to imagine a future that, up until that point, had only lived in hope. And all of a sudden it felt real. It felt like a new chapter had opened. It felt like grace had come close.

But within two weeks—just days before we left for that trip—we got the crushing news.

Lexi was having a miscarriage.

And I can still see that hospital room. I can still feel the shock of it. The confusion of it. The helplessness of it. It was as though this little future we had quietly begun to build in our hearts had been washed away almost as quickly as it had arrived. And there we were, sitting in the middle of a pain we had not prepared for and could not fix.

We still went on the trip. And I remember driving through Arizona with my mind circling all the what-ifs.

What if this happens every time?

What if this never happens for us?

What if the future we pictured is not the future we get?

And then, as grief so often does, the what-ifs gave way to the whys.

Why us?

Why now?

Why does God let these things happen?

And that is not just my question. That is one of the deepest questions human beings ask.

Not as an abstract philosophical exercise. Not as some detached debate for a classroom or a podcast. We ask it from hospital rooms. We ask it from gravesides. We ask it in the aftermath of a diagnosis, or a betrayal, or a phone call that changes everything. We ask it when the life we were building suddenly cracks in our hands.

Why does God allow suffering?

And I want to say right at the beginning today that I do not know why God allows every instance of suffering. I do not know why one prayer seems to be answered the way we hoped and another is met with silence we cannot understand. I do not know why some people seem to walk a smoother road while others carry grief after grief after grief.

I do not know.

But I do know this: God is with us in it, and in Christ we are called to be with one another in it too.

And that is where Romans 8 meets us.

The world is groaning

Romans 8:18–25 NRSV

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” And then he gives us this striking image. He says creation waits with eager longing. Creation has been subjected to futility. The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait for redemption.

Creation groans. We groan.

That matters, because Romans 8 does not try to deny pain. It does not pretend that faith makes us immune from loss. It does not suggest that if we trust God enough, life will stop hurting. Paul tells the truth. This world is beautiful, yes, but it is also broken. It bears signs of glory and signs of fracture at the very same time.

And that means suffering is not always something we can explain neatly. Sometimes suffering comes through human sin. Sometimes through injustice. Sometimes through sickness. Sometimes through the slow breaking down of bodies and minds. Sometimes it is simply the ache of living in a creation that is still waiting to be made whole.

Paul does not say all suffering has the same cause. He says the whole creation is groaning.

That is such an important word, because groaning is not the sound of unbelief. Groaning is the sound of a world that knows something is wrong and is longing for what only God can finally set right. Faith does not mean pretending everything is fine. Faith does not mean skipping past lament. Sometimes faith sounds like a groan.

The question is not whether Christians groan. According to Romans 8, we do. The question is what kind of groaning it is. Paul says it is the groaning of people who wait in hope. Not because the pain is small, but because the promise of God is bigger.

The Spirit meets us in the groaning

Romans 8:26–27 NRSV

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Then Paul goes even deeper. He says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

That may be one of the most tender lines in the whole Bible.

Because there are moments in life when prayer does not come out clean. There are moments when your theology may still be intact, but your heart is exhausted. There are moments when all the polished words disappear and all you have left is silence, tears, or one repeated sentence: Lord, help me. Lord, why. Lord, please.

And Paul says that in those moments, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Not after we become strong enough. Not once we gather ourselves together. Not once we find the right language.

In our weakness.

That means suffering does not place us beyond the reach of God. It does not disqualify us from faith. It does not mean we have failed spiritually because we are confused, or numb, or angry, or too tired to say much at all. The Spirit meets us there.

And this is where the message looks toward the church. Because if this is who God is—if God meets us in our weakness—then the people of God are called to reflect that same kind of presence.

We are not called to explain one another’s pain away. We are not called to rush one another through grief. We are not called to weaponize Bible verses against wounded people.

We are called to be with each other in it.

To sit in the hospital room. To make the phone call. To bring the meal. To pray when someone else cannot pray. To sit in silence when silence is the holiest thing we can offer. To weep with those who weep.

Part of the church’s witness in a suffering world is not that we have all the answers. It is that we know how to stay.

The love of God holds us through the groaning

Romans 8:28–39 NRSV

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, 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 within a large family. 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 are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced 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.

Then Paul moves into one of the most quoted lines in the chapter: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

And this verse needs to be handled carefully.

Paul does not say all things are good.

He does not say suffering is good. He does not say miscarriage is good. He does not say disease is good. He does not say betrayal is good. He does not say evil is secretly fine if we just wait long enough.

No. The Bible is far more honest than that.

What Paul says is that in all things, God is at work for good.

That means suffering does not outrun God’s redeeming power. It means evil does not get the final say over the meaning of our lives. It means there is no wound so deep that grace cannot enter it. No darkness so thick that resurrection light cannot eventually reach it.

And the good Paul has in mind is not shallow comfort. It is not ease. It is not “everything worked out exactly the way I wanted.” The good is that God is making us into the image of his Son. The good is redemption. The good is resurrection. The good is that suffering will not finally be wasted, because God is committed to bringing his people and his creation into glory.

A few days after that miscarriage, Lexi and I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

And I remember looking out over that vastness and feeling small. Not small in a crushing way. Small in a clarifying way. There was something about standing in front of a landscape that immense, something ancient and beautiful and wild, that reminded me that the world was bigger than my pain, and that God was bigger than my questions. I did not get an answer standing there. I did not suddenly understand why that loss had happened. The grief was still real. The ache was still real. The questions were still real.

But for a moment, I was assured that we were not alone.

Not explained. Not fixed. Not wrapped up neatly.

Just not alone.

And for some of you, that may be the word you most need today. Not that everything is going to make sense by tomorrow. Not that your pain is small. Not that this sermon can tie up the deepest grief of your life with a bow. But simply this: you are not alone.

A few months later, we found out that we would be having our first son. And I want to say that carefully, because not every story turns that way, and not every story turns that quickly. That joy did not erase the loss. It did not make the suffering simple. It did not answer every question. But it did remind us that grief is not always the end of the story. And even when we cannot yet see what comes next, God is still present, still faithful, still holding us inside a future larger than what we can imagine from within our pain.

And that is exactly where Paul lands. Not with an explanation, but with assurance.

“If God is for us, who is against us?”

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

And then he names all the things that feel like they might: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, anything else in all creation.

And he says none of it.

None of it can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say those things are unreal. He does not say they cannot wound us. He does not say they cannot exhaust us or break our hearts. He says they cannot separate us.

That means suffering is real, but it is not ultimate.

Because Jesus Christ has entered the suffering of the world, and Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Which means the deepest truth about your life is not your wound, not your loss, not your unanswered question. The deepest truth about your life is that in Christ you are loved by a God who will not let go of you.

So why does God allow suffering?

I do not know every answer to that question.

But I know this.

I know that God is with us in it.

I know that the Spirit meets us in our weakness.

I know that the church is called to be with one another in the sorrow.

And I know that suffering does not get the last word.

The love of God in Christ does.

Amen