The Truth About Christianity - Week 4
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- It’s generally considered good preaching to begin your message with something attention grabbing.
- Maybe a story or an illustration.
- Maybe a joke.
- Then you can use that to grab everyone’s attention – regardless of whether someone is a follower of Jesus or not – and then use that to bridge into the actual topic of the message.
- That’s good preaching at its finest.
- That’s not what I’m going to do this morning.
- Because this morning, there is no story, no funny illustration that I believe would suit what we are going to be tackling today.
- Because this is week number four of our series “The Truth About Christianity” where we are taking some of the biggest questions, problems, and objections that people have concerning Christianity, and we are looking at them as logically and objectively as possible.
- And so we’ve covered the topics of “Can we trust the Bible?”
- “Is there only one way to God?”
- And last week we talked about “Is Jesus God?”
- And this morning, our topic today is a big one.
- It’s a serious one.
- And it’s one that doesn’t require any attention-grabbing introduction, because there isn’t anyone here (or watching online) who hasn’t struggled with this morning’s question.
- Some of us are currently dealing with this and asking this question right now.
- Today, we are going to do our best to try and give at least a little bit of insight to this question:
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- “Why do people suffer?”
- Many people would say that this is the biggest problem they have with Christianity.
- This is arguably considered to be the biggest objection that people raise when they talk about reasons why they don’t believe in God and don’t follow Jesus.
- And so this is the objection:
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- God cannot be both all-powerful andall-loving.
- Either God is all-powerful, but He doesn’t care enough to stop suffering (He’s not all-loving), or else God is all-loving, but He isn’t able to stop suffering (He’s not all-powerful).
- Because it can’t possibly be both.
- If God was both all-loving and all-powerful, then evil and pain and suffering wouldn’t exist.
- But, since evil and pain and suffering do exist, God must be one or the other.
- So maybe God is strong enough to stop all of our suffering, but He chooses not to because He is cruel.
- Or else God wants to stop all of our suffering, but He isn’t able to because He is limited.
- Or, I suppose a third option would be to simply say that God doesn’t exist.
- Either way, this god is not worth following.
- This is the problem.
- However, Christianity does in fact claim that the one true God is both all-loving and all-powerful.
- And by claiming both simultaneously, the existence of evil, pain, and suffering poses a massive problem.
- If God is truly all-powerful, as the Bible says, and has the ability to do away with all suffering...
- And, if God is also all-loving, as the Bible says, and wants the best for us...
- If both of those things are true, then we are left with this incredible, major challenge:
- Why do people suffer?
- Now, before we dive in, I would like to give two words of caution.
- First, this problem of suffering cannot be discussed in a vacuum.
- We cannot treat this one issue as if this undoes everything else that we’ve talked about.
- Make no mistake about it, the problem of suffering is a massive problem, but this problem needs to be addressed in the light of what we’ve already talked about, concerning the trustworthiness of the Bible, the reason to believe that there is only one way to God, and the compelling evidence pointing towards the conclusion that Jesus is God.
- And so I believe that suffering is a huge issue, and a major hurdle to believing in the claims of Christianity.
- But, based on what we have talked about for the past three weeks, and based on the plethora of resources that exist to help answer other problems, questions, and objections, we should not allow all of that to be completely refuted by one problem – even a problem as major as this.
- And I need to say that this morning, because there is a very strong likelihood that you are not going to be satisfied by my attempts to answer our question today.
- This may just be the least-convincing and least-certain week in this entire series.
- And this definitely is the week where the answer requires the biggest amount of faith.
- Because as we’ll talk about in a bit, there is so much we don’t know, and so much faith is required to really address this from a truly Christian perspective.
- But, even if you leave here and you think I just copped-out of giving you any real, substantial answer, please remember all of the other evidence and reasons that point in favour of Christianity.
- Because this question needs to fall alongside the other questions, and should not be just one lone question on an island that must be conclusively proven with absolutely no room for any doubt whatsoever.
- This is a big question, but it’s not the only question.
- So that’s my first caution.
- My second caution is this:
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- When it comes right down to it, this is not a hypothetical problem.
- This is a personal problem.
- When someone raises the objection “If God exists then why is there so much suffering in the world?” you can be almost absolutely certain that they are thinking of a specific suffering that is on their heart right now at the very moment of them raising that objection.
- Because we are not far removed from this problem.
- None of us are.
- No matter what we believe.
- No matter what we think.
- No matter what we’ve gone through.
- We all have a deep connection, and strong emotions and experiences, when it comes to the issue of suffering.
- And so followers of Jesus need to be very mindful and cautious of this.
- When people have just experienced a terrible tragedy, it is usually not a good idea to try to attempt to give them a reason for their suffering.
- When we have the chance to be with someone who raises this objection to Christianity, there is a strong chance that the best thing we can do in that moment is not to offer any words of wisdom, or any apologetic defences for Christianity.
- There is a strong chance that the best thing we can do in that moment is simply submit to Paul’s advice to the followers of Jesus in ancient Rome.
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- Romans 12:15b
o weep with those who weep.
- There’s an ancient Jewish story of a man named Job, that tells the story of someone who faces incredible, heart-breaking pain and suffering (after Easter we’ll be spending an extended amount of time looking at the story of Job).
- And in Job’s story, he has friends come and offer him advice.
- And these friends nowadays are famous for the advice they gave, because their advice was not that great.
- In fact, at the end of the story God shows up and tells these friends that they have not done a good job of helping their friend Job.
- However, if you go back to the beginning, when Job’s friends come to be with him during his time of tremendous suffering, you will notice that we are told this:
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- Job 2:12-13
o When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights.
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o No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.
- When we encounter people who are struggling with why there is suffering in the world, maybe the best thing we can do is to close our mouths and simply be with them in their pain.
- Because once Job’s friends open their mouths, that’s when they get into trouble – even though they had good intentions and were trying to help.
- So often when people raise this question of “Why do people suffer?” the Christian responses seem like nothing more than meaningless clichés that trivialize the suffering that a person is going through.
- Maybe some of us have experienced this ourselves, and maybe some of us are guilty of this (I know I am).
- That in our attempts to be helpful, we utter unhelpful arguments that only push someone further away from Jesus, rather than drawing them closer to Him.
- Sometimes we are more concerned with giving them an answer to their suffering – when the truth is we need to sit in that uncomfortable silence, because we don’t know the answer.
- Alright, so now that we’ve got all of that out of the way, let’s try and do our best to help address this question (not “answer” it, but address it).
- Why do people suffer?
- In addressing this question, one of the best things we can do is to peel back the layers of it.
- A couple of weeks ago, we looked at pluralism, and the idea that all religions are partially true, and all religions are partially false, and they are all just different paths to the same destination.
- But, as we peeled back the layers of that belief, we saw a self-defeating, contradictory claim at the heart of it, that turns out to be completely illogical and unreasonable.
- Similarly, if we peel back the layers of our question this morning, we will find a problem with the question itself, and hopefully find a little bit of help in our attempts to address and understand it.
- So let’s go back to the objection.
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- Christianity believes in a God who is both all-powerful and all-loving.
- But, this objection claims, if that God exists, He would not create a world filled with pointless evil (meaningless suffering).
- Yet, the world is filled with pointless evil and meaningless suffering.
- Therefore, the Christian God cannot exist.
- This is the objection.
- However, this objection hinges on a mistaken premise.
- Because the reasoning underneath that premise goes like this:
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- 1. We cannot think of any justifiable reason why God would allow suffering and evil to continue.
- 2. Therefore, God cannot have such a reason.
- This is absolutely illogical.
- Why is it impossible for there to be a reason, just because we can’t think of one?
- Think about it this way.
- If there is a God who is great enough to be angry at for not preventing suffering, then at the same time there must also be a God who is great enough to have a reason for allowing suffering that we cannot discern or understand.
- Here is a quote from authors Norman Geisler and Peter Bocchino:
o “Our not knowing all of the good purposes God has for pain and suffering doesn’t mean that there are no good purposes. Our not knowing doesn’t mean that God (an infinite Being) doesn’t know. The only logical conclusion one can reach is that if God is all-good and all-knowing, then He must know good purposes for all pain and suffering in this world. It does not follow that evil proves that God is imperfect and limited; what follows is that we are imperfect and limited.”
- Timothy Keller says it this way: “If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways.”
- Now let’s slow down and be a little self-reflective here.
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- Has time and perspective ever changed how you understood a situation in your past?
- When you look back on your life, is there any struggle that you’ve gone through, any pain that you’ve experienced, any suffering in your life... that now that you look back on it, you can see a good reason for having to go through it?
- I’m not saying this for everything you’ve gone through, but is there anything that this applies to?
- For example, maybe there was a time when you were heartbroken that you went through that breakup. But now you’re married with kids and are so thankful you went through that because it led you to the family you have now (sounds like a good country song).
- With enough time and perspective most of us can see good reasons for some of the tragedy and pain that occurs in life.
- Therefore, couldn’t it at least be possible that, from God’s vantage point, there are good reasons for all of it?
- Think about the perspective of a six-year-olds version of “suffering”.
- Imagine back to what it was like to suffer as a six-year-old (or, I should say, suffer like the average North American six-year-old, since there are those who face incredible trials and struggles from very early on in life).
- But when I think back on my life as a six-year-old, you know what comes to mind (and this is true)?
- I remember how I had started school, and one of the goals for that year was for everyone to learn how to tie their own shoelaces.
- And once you were able to tie your own shoelaces you got to colour in a paper shoe, tie some rope through it the way you’d tie your shoelaces, and then it would go on the wall for everyone to see.
- And that was the goal.
- To prove to the teacher, and to everyone else, that you were big enough, old enough, and smart enough to tie your own shoelaces.
- And you know what?
- I never got it.
- If my memory is correct, I think there was one other kid in the class who also didn’t get it, but I remember being absolutely humiliated as the year ended, and circling around the classroom on the wall were everyone’s paper shoes showing how they had mastered this important life-skill.
- And it was a big deal to me.
- It seriously was.
- My mom spent the summer trying to teach me how to tie my shoes so that I wouldn’t have to go back in the fall without having learnt it.
- (Now, my mom did quickly realize that the reason I was struggling was because I was left-handed and everyone was trying to teach me using my right hand as my dominant hand, so I did learn to tie my shoes once that was sorted out).
- But this was a big deal to six-year-old Matthew.
- And chances are some of you would say something similar.
- We remember the traumatic experience of moving away from your hometown into a new city because mom got transferred.
- Or maybe some of us don’t remember anything at all, because nothing all that important happened when we were that young.
- Or, I should say, nothing all that important happened – from our perspective now.
- But when we are six, these things were a big deal.
- I know this seems a little silly, but in terms of personal suffering, a six-year-old is going through real emotional turmoil and is really, truly upset.
- And, again in terms of personal suffering, a six-year-old feels no different than an adult facing a far more serious situation.
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- So, what if, when it comes to our lives right here and right now, what if we are alljust six-year olds suffering?
- And what if, when we have an eternal perspective, we will see all of our situations completely differently?
- We can remember certain things happening to us that, as six-year-olds, we thought of as irreparable, tragic, emotional wounds that would never heal.
- Yet we got over them, eventually.
- If that is the difference that a few decades can make to our perspective, then can it not at least be possible to imagine the perfection of everlasting life that goes on for trillions of years, that could be so great it would make anything we go through here look like a faintly dim memory?
- This is how the Apostle Paul (who knew a thing or two about suffering himself) words it:
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- 2 Corinthians 4:17a
o For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.
- This morning, I want to say that there is a fundamental problem with the objection “People suffer, therefore God can’t exist”.
- Because the argument contradicts itself.
- The objection puts all of the blame on God, who should be powerful enough to stop all suffering from happening. But the objection gives no room for this same God to be powerful and wise enough to have a reason beyond what we can comprehend.
- Which leads me to what I believe is the uncomfortable truth that Christians mustbe willing to address.
- Because followers of Jesus should have the faith to believe that God is big enough to have reasons that are beyond us.
- Followers of Jesus should have the faith to believe that one day an eternal perspective will transform how we see even the most difficult struggles we face here now.
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- But, even with all of what we’ve said so far, if the ultimate answer to the problem “Why do people suffer?” revolves around the unknowable sovereignty of God, then ultimately the answer to our question this morning is as follows:
- “Why do people suffer?”
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- “We don’t know.”
- I cannot stress this strongly enough, because I feel so strongly about it.
- If someone tells you that they know the reason for why God does what He does on earth.
- They know why some people receive miraculous physical healing and others don’t.
- They know why some struggle and others prosper.
- They know why some go through hard times and some have it easy.
- If someone claims to know the meaning behind why God does everything, then please listen to me.
- They are lying to you.
- We don’t know why things happen the way that they happen.
- We don’t know why people suffer.
- We don’t know why an all-loving, all-powerful God chooses to act in the ways that He acts.
- And we don’t know why an all-loving, all-powerful God chooses to hold back in the ways that He holds back.
- We don’t know.
- And I wish I had something more definite.
- I wish I had something more concrete.
- I wish I had something more satisfying.
- But the ultimate truth for this morning is that I don’t know why people suffer.
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- But, I believe that God knows.
- And, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do, I hold on to that hope, because without it, what hope do I have left?
- And I believe that one day, the perspective of everlasting life that comes through a relationship with Jesus will help make sense of everything.
- Because God is in control.
- But, we’re not done quite yet.
- We’re not just going to say “I don’t know” and then close in prayer.
- Because, in spite of what we do not know (which admittedly is a lot when it comes to this subject), there are still a few more things that we do know.
- So let’s consider these ancient Jewish words:
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- Ecclesiastes 7:15
o I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people.
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- Jeremiah 12:1-2a
o Lord, you always give me justice
when I bring a case before you.
So let me bring you this complaint:
Why are the wicked so prosperous?
Why are evil people so happy?
You have planted them,
and they have taken root and prospered.
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- Habakkuk 1:2-3
o How long, O Lord, must I call for help?
But you do not listen!
“Violence is everywhere!” I cry,
but you do not come to save.
Must I forever see these evil deeds?
Why must I watch all this misery?
Wherever I look,
I see destruction and violence.
- So why are we reading all of these passages?
- We are reading these, because in so many Christian contexts, there is this incredibly harmful and damaging belief.
- And this belief says that if you are going to be a Christian, then you’d better just smile.
- And when someone asks you “How are you?” you just say “Good.”
- Because Christians shouldn’t have problems.
- Christians shouldn’t have doubts.
- Christians shouldn’t have issues and struggles and suffering.
- Because Christians are supposed to have it all together.
- This belief is so non-biblical that I don’t even know where to begin.
- Every example that we just looked at come from the Jewish Scriptures (from the Old Testament), from the same place where some will try to argue in favour of a prosperity gospel (and the New Testament takes it even further, because there are no traces of the prosperity gospel being a legitimate option in the New Testament).
- But these are incredibly blunt words – some of them aimed directly at God Himself.
- Throughout the Scriptures, we are exposed to the whole spectrum of human emotion (to an uncomfortable degree in some cases).
- And you’ll notice, that not only does God allow these questions, doubts, and struggles. But He actually welcomes them.
- This is why these words have been preserved for us. For millennia people have risked their lives to protect and preserve these words so that we would have the opportunity to read them.
- We need to understand this:
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- True Christianity does not believe that following God makes everything all better right now.
- From beginning to end, the Bible contains raw, honest, open cries to God from people who are in the most emotional, pain-stricken hardships and suffering.
- And so we should be encouraged by this.
- When we are suffering, God doesn’t want us to just smile and pretend everything is fine.
- God wants us to draw close to Him.
- God wants us to tell Him how we feel.
- God wants us to open ourselves up to Him, so that He can respond to us.
- And, even when we don’t have all of the answers we’re looking for, we might just find that an open and honest relationship with God, well that may just be exactly what we need.
- Even when we are feeling something that seems so far removed from the “proper church attitude”.
- After all, if you go back to the story of Job, when God finally arrives on the scene, He doesn’t actually answer any of Job’s questions or objections or problems or complaints.
- But God’s presence turns out to be enough for Job.
- And maybe, if we’re willing to be honest with God about what we’re going through, what we’re feeling, and what we’re thinking, well maybe we’ll find out that God’s presence turns out to be enough for us too.
- And so, up to this point, we have looked at the problem of suffering, we have looked at the problem that lies within the problem itself, and we have looked at a little bit of what the Scriptures say concerning suffering.
- Now I’d like us to shift our focus for just a few minutes, and look at what other alternatives there are.
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- Because even if you don’t believe in God because of the problem of suffering… you are still left with the problem of suffering.
- Suffering doesn’t go away if God goes away.
- And so, if you take the God of Christianity out of the picture, how can you deal with suffering from a different worldview?
- Here is what C.S. Lewis says:
o “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet...Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
- What Lewis is saying here is that the existence of evil and suffering may in fact argue more in favour of God’s existence rather than against it.
- Because if there is no God, then we would not have any concept of evil and suffering to begin with (because there would be no absolute, perfect, higher standard – no ideal to strive and hope for).
- Think about it this way.
- Everyone – regardless of what they believe in – agrees that people go through suffering.
- But where does that belief itself come from?
- If there is no perfect, all-loving, all-powerful God, then where does this idea that things should be better come from?
- From an evolutionary point of view, natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak.
- These things are all perfectly natural.
- If there is no God, people don’t really have a good reason for being outraged at the existence of suffering.
- Death and destruction are perfectly natural.
- Someone can only object to injustice if they already believe in some kind of “supernatural” moral standard (some standard that comes from outside of nature and which judges some types of “natural” behaviour as wrong).
- And where does such a supernatural standard come from if there is no God?
- So eliminating God does not eliminate the problem of evil and suffering.
- As we’ve already said, the problem of evil and suffering is, perhaps, the strongest objection to the Christian faith.
- It is strong because it is an irreducible problem.
- It can never be removed by argument.
- We can never have such a convincing argument that all human suffering ceases to be because we’ve simply explained it so well.
- However, what I want to make clear, is that evil and suffering creates an even greater problem for alternative views and positions.
- Some of us may still be unsatisfied by the Christian response to “Why do people suffer?” but even if that is the case, we’ll be even more unsatisfied by it from any other perspective.
- If we deny the existence of God, then we have no reason to be upset – or even emotionally bothered – by the incredible level of human suffering.
- It’s simply survival of the fittest working at its finest.
- And if we allow for the existence of God, in order to tackle the existence of suffering, then, out of all of the religions in the world, Christianity is uniquely and exclusively able to speak to the issue of suffering.
- And so, as we prepare to close our morning together, please allow me just a few more minutes to tell you about why Jesus is uniquely able to speak to this issue of suffering.
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- Only Jesus takes our suffering so seriously that He is willing to get involved with it Himself.
- God himself has come into our world and experienced injustice, violence, and rejection (pain, evil, suffering).
- Because Jesus – God Himself – came down and suffered in order to put to an end the greatest evil and suffering of all – everlasting separation from Himself.
- I’ve told you that what we need to do is have faith that God has unknowable reasons for allowing suffering to continue to exist.
- But that claim is not just based in blind faith, as if we’re just crossing our fingers and hoping for some dumb luck.
- We do actually have confirmation that God has some good reason for allowing suffering and evil to (temporarily) continue – even if we can’t know the precise reason.
- What is that confirmation?
- The cross (what we will remember together at 3pm this coming Friday).
- If we again ask the question: “Why do people suffer?” and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is.
- However, we now know what the answer can’t be.
- It can’t be because He doesn’t love us.
- It can’t be because He is indifferent or detached from what we’re going through.
- God takes our suffering so seriously that He was willing to take it on Himself.
- And the answer also can’t be that God could just snap His fingers, do away with all suffering, and still maintain the level of relationship with us that He desires to have.
- Because otherwise God would have chosen that option over coming down and suffering Himself.
- If God loves us enough to suffer for us, then He must have a good reason for allowing suffering to go on.
- You cannot say “If Jesus loves us enough to come and die for us, then He should just zap all our suffering away.”
- Because the fact that Jesus does come and suffer for us proves that He loves us, and it also proves that there must be a reason why suffering still continues.
- Timothy Keller writes that Christianity stands alone when it claims that its God understands suffering because He suffered for us. And Jesus did it so that someday He will be able to end evil and suffering forever, without ending us.
- Edward Shillito wrote a poem called “Jesus of the Scars”, and this is how he ends his poem:
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o The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.
- We live in a world where we all struggle to find meaning in our suffering, a purpose for our suffering, or a reason for our suffering (some of don’t even want to find a meaning, because it’s easier to believe that it’s all meaningless).
- No matter where we’re coming from, no matter what we believe in, suffering is a real struggle for all of us.
- And as we all go through this, is there anything that can speak louder to our wounds, than the wounds of God Himself?
- Is there anything that gives our suffering greater meaning, than the suffering that God went through out of His great love for us?
- God is no stranger to pain, evil, and suffering.
- Some may claim that all that we’ve said today does not get God “off the hook” with regards to why people suffering.
- But, in fact, Christianity alone believes that God deliberately put Himself “on the hook” of human suffering.
- Though Christianity does not provide the reason for each individual struggle, Jesus’ suffering gives us the ability to actually face suffering with hope and courage.
- Because, no matter what happens, we can know that God is truly Immanuel – God with us – even in our worst sufferings.
- But (and here’s where we’re going to wrap up today), Jesus’ ability to relate to our suffering by going through His own suffering is not where Jesus’ story ends.
- Jesus’ death was not the end.
- From the very beginning, the first Christians claimed that Jesus had risen from the grave, bringing life, hope, and even victory to their lives – even in the midst of their suffering.
- Because in talking about the issue of suffering, and in talking about the suffering of Jesus, it cannot be looked at in a vacuum.
- The cross of Christ is inescapably linked to the resurrection of Christ.
- So I would like to invite you to come back out next week, as we conclude our series on Easter Sunday, by looking at one final question in our search for the Truth About Christianity.
- “Did Jesus Rise From The Grave?”
- Close in prayer
- (*) Now What
- Benediction:
- Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace—
who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great Shepherd of the sheep,
and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
Scriptures:
- Romans 12:9-21
- Job 2:11-13
- 2 Corinthians 4:8-18
- John 16:16-33
Prayer:
- Spend some time praying for the people you know who are facing various kinds of suffering. Pray for God’s presence and peace to be made known to them during whatever they are going through.
- Pray for God to touch your own heart when it comes to your own personal suffering. Pray that God would help you trust and hope in Him, no matter what life throws at you.
Discussion/Reflection:
- The question of why people suffer is not merely a hypothetical problem, but a personal one. Every person suffers, and it impacts how we see God and the world around us. How should this fact change the way that Christians talk about suffering, help those who are suffering, and pray for those who are suffering? How can Christians do a better job of being humble, loving, and bold when addressing issues like this?
- When you think back to your childhood (or maybe teenage years), what was some of the suffering that you went through? Are you able to see any of that suffering differently now that you are further removed from it? How might this change in perspective give us hope to the suffering we are currently facing?
- Why do you think it can be common for Christians to avoid suffering or not want to address it? Why do you think the Bible doesn’t shy away from addressing it head on? In your own personal relationship with Jesus, what are you more prone to do?
- The problem of suffering becomes an even bigger problem if you remove God from the conversation (because then you don’t have any “higher power” in your reasoning that things should be better). Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Why? What does the suffering of Jesus mean for the suffering that you have gone through (or maybe are currently going through)?
Now What Next Step:
- Get together with a few friends and/or family members, and take turns addressing how you would respond if someone asked you “If God is all-powerful and all-loving, then why do people suffer?”
- Have an open and honest discussion of how you have wrestled (and maybe are wrestling) with this big question in your own lives, and how you might help others address it as well.
