Dear
Craig,
I am curious. If God is all knowing
and all powerful then why does he allow so much suffering? Why does
needless tragedy happen in this world such as the holocaust, 911, and all kinds
of natural disasters such as the recent earthquake/tsunami last
Christmas? Why do so many innocent people die? Why do babies die?
If a non believer asked you any one of these questions, where would you go in
the bible for an answer? I mean a concrete answer? I have yet to find
it.
I appreciate your attention to this question and am waiting anxiously for an
answer and scripture to back it up.
Thank
you,
Heather
Dear
Heather,
Thank
you for these well thought out questions.
I believe what you asked out of curiosity to be the most important of
questions any Christian man or woman will ever face. Your inquiry touches a nerve and begs for the reality of
God. At the end of this reply I have
listed you some of my own medical problems and issues of severe chronic pain,
so you know where I’m coming from and lend credibility to my answers. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but
everything listed can be medically documented.
I’ve
been a born-again Christian for 32 years of my life and got saved in 1973 after
being honorably discharged from the Army. I spent the next 14 years of my
Christian life in a Pentecostal church, during which time I engaged in street
outreach evangelism and even became a licensed minister. I was taught and subsequently taught others
that God was my source for everything; this included healing, inspiration,
teaching, etc. Every time I got a sore
throat, cold or the flu, I would pray for healing, and it seemed I got
better. What I didn’t realize (due to
faulty teaching) is that God does not act upon our every wish, prayer or beckon
and He is not responsible for the vast majority of what we do.
Since March of 1993 I have suffered
a life of debilitating physical pain that has worsened progressively to the
point I am currently at the highest levels of therapy for treating pain from a
medical perspective. Unlike terminal
cancer patients whose condition has an end in sight, this is not so in my case. Twelve long years of suffering daily with
debilitating severe chronic pain has taught me the ‘how’ part of answering your
question, but not the ‘why’ part. I don’t have the answers that will ever
satisfy the ‘why’ part of the question, “If God is all knowing and all powerful then WHY does
he allow so much suffering?”
I
have asked God this same question you asked me on countless occasions; only a
person that has truly suffered unrelenting pain, physical or otherwise, will
comprehend what I am sharing with you today.
Where was this all-powerful God I profess and tell others to believe
in? Where was this compassionate and
merciful God? Where was He for ME? Forget the Bible verses for a minute, where
is God??? Isn’t that the salient and
more pertinent question?
Everyone
else will only visualize or imagine they know, while some of the more arrogant
and self absorbed, particularly those promoting the health, wealth and
prosperity gospel, will toot their egotistical little horns that it is, “lack
of faith” or that it is, “un-confessed sin,” that accounts for the disease and
suffering. Their so-called “faith”
crumbles in an instant when it is their child that gets hit by a speeding drunk
driver, leaving them quadriplegic for the rest of their life.
Yesterday
I asked God, “Why?” and the day before I asked God, “Why?” and all of the days
of all of the weeks before that I asked God, “Why?” and then, for all of the
months before that I asked God, “Why?” and now it has been 12 long years and I
still I find myself still asking the same disturbing unanswered question, “Why
does God allow me to suffer like this?
What possible good can come from years of intolerable and excruciating
pain?”
I
cannot even count how many times I wished I would simply die. Only those that have truly suffered
understand the tremendous struggle it is not to take ones’ own life just to
escape the pain. Yesterday, after four
days and nights of no sleep, (something that occurs multiple times every month)
and in addition to coping with the pain, my mind was reduced to a jumbled mush
of confusion. I’d blurt out things I
didn’t even mean to say, and then I’d feel terrible for saying them, yet unable
to regain control. Lack of sleep is a
form of torture. Why does God let it
happen? I know the verses of scripture
that say He gives “sleep” to His beloved, but guess what, He doesn’t always do
that!
Lack
of sleep makes the mind totally irrational and creates a mishmash of feelings
and ideas roll around and around, “Where are you God?” and even, “I hate you
God,” in between sessions of, “I’m sorry God.”
At times I’ve concluded, “There is no God,” because I cannot feel His
touch or see any evidence He is working on my behalf. I could sugar-coat this reply for you, but what good would that
do? What hope does it offer the person
who seemingly has no hope? Aren’t
Christians guilty to one degree or another of misrepresenting God’s involvement
in the affairs of men?
Even
more troubling Heather, though I seek God’s healing touch for days on end, is
the fact I have dedicated my entire life to touching the lives of hurt and
broken human beings, and now all I can do is sit at my computer, barely able to
walk, unable to talk for more than five minutes without excruciating pain and
headaches, fighting all day long to answer a few email questions in between getting
sick. I mean you’d think if God was willing to help someone it would certainly
be the person that devotes his or her life to helping others in Jesus’ name,
right? But it isn’t working out that
way!
Now
that I have vented, let’s start with your questions and my answers:
·
If
God is all knowing and all powerful then why does he allow so much
suffering? I don’t know. There’s no
scripture that can account for this, and anyone that says there is has a lot of
life yet to experience.
·
Why
does needless tragedy happen in this world such as the holocaust, 911, and all
kinds of natural disasters such as the recent earthquake/tsunami last
Christmas? I don’t know. Christians
that think they have the answer to this needless kind of suffering have not yet
experienced it themselves. If somebody says they have the answer from the Bible
that explains this needless tragedy, they’ll change their tune very quickly
when it happens to them.
·
Why
do so many innocent people die? I don’t know. Bad things happen to
good people and bad people. Suffering
shows no partiality.
·
Why
do babies die? I don’t know.
·
If
a non believer asked you any one of these questions, where would you go in the
Bible for an answer? I mean a concrete answer? How can anyone
purport to be the one that knows why God does or doesn’t allow babies to die or
children to starve? The best we can do
is learn from the circumstances, and hopefully use our experience to show mercy
and sympathy to others in their time of need or their time of crisis. I would gauge each situation
individually. I do not believe there’s
one single set of answers in scripture to explain ‘why’ these things
happen. I know I’m supposed to have the
answers from the Bible, but when it comes to this particular subject, I do not
believe there is an answer to satisfy the question, “Why?” This is even more so if it is asked by
someone in his or her own time or circumstance of affliction and suffering.
Please
understand Heather, I am not trashing the Bible. I believe it is the very inspired word of God in its original
languages. But I do not now believe the
Bible was ever intended to be used as a kind of handbook with answers that
explain His involvement in every calamity.
I certainly don’t believe the Bible has all of the answers to all of the
questions you asked, nor do I think it was intended for that reason. I did not always have this same viewpoint,
but it has developed as a result of my own physical torment and pain, and the
emotional and psychological trauma that accompanies suffering.
I’m
being very real and very raw here, so please, bear with me dear friend. The reason I share this way is because I
sense inside myself that you will not condemn or judge me. Even if someone does judge, which is
inevitable, if my honesty helps just one other person being afflicted, then it
will be worth it. Anyone who has
suffered physical and emotional and psychological pain for a long time, and has
not turned bitter or resentful, has something unique that is formed by God on
the inside. They possess an innate
ability to identify with others that are in pain.
My
sense is that you are asking this question for a very good reason, and I
suspect it is because you have personally witnessed human suffering up close
and personal. I just feel it
from the way you posed the questions.
I’m physically afflicted enough to qualify as a person that can provide
you with an answer from the Bible. I’m
intellectually capable enough to provide you with Bible verses. But the reason I am remiss to do so boils
down to this: When it comes right down
to it Heather, there’s not one single Bible verse that is going to console
or appease the type of suffering you are talking about. The ONLY thing that will help someone
suffering in this way is for you to love them, try to understand their pain,
and thru your sympathy and tenderness you will BECOME the answer they seek from
God. I hope this makes sense.
I
hope you’re not too disappointed with my reply. Please forgive me if I have let you down. I agonized over this email all day and felt
so unworthy to reply. Some days the
physical pain and exhaustion from lack of sleep consumes me and floods my mind
with questions upon questions.
No
human being truly understands why God, who is love, (and I believe He is love)
allows me, and others like me, to be tormented and afflicted. No one likes to see others suffering and our
minds grasp for some reason, anything that will explain such madness. And why does God allow this to continue day
in and day out, and it never seems to end?
Why do others less committed to God, and who don’t even believe in God
walk about with ease and comfort while His own children are decimated beyond
description?
What
would I tell someone, especially an unbeliever that asks me why God allows
suffering? Each circumstance governs
how I’d respond. Most times I’d sit and
listen. Maybe hold their hand, maybe
hug them if it wasn’t too painful.
Maybe I’d cry with them. Maybe
I’d listen to them curse God over and over, and know they needed my love,
because I was their only connection to reality. I just cannot categorize and provide scriptures for the type of
suffering you are asking about.
Before
I was so badly afflicted, I’d give people some nifty verse from the psalms, or
I’d remind them how much Jesus suffered.
But none of that takes away their pain, now does it? I could do like many Christian do and
explain how the suffering and tragedies are the consequence of sin, and even
though that is true, does it comfort the grieving parent whose child was burned
over 80% of their body, and lived? How
do you explain God’s mercy and love to someone that witnesses their wife jump
headlong out of one of the Twin Towers and plunge to her death to escape
burning alive in the towering inferno??
I
appreciate you asking this questions more than you know. To summarize and conclude, here’s a couple
of life lessons I can give you to pass on from the perspective of one who has
truly suffered:
1.
I
accept I will never understand why suffering exists.
2.
I
will not expect God to tell me why.
3.
I
will not demand God to explain Himself.
4.
In
my suffering, I want to learn how to be effectively compassionate to others
that suffer, so that my own suffering has not been in vain.
5.
I
accept the fact I do not have all the answers, nor does God always reveal them.
6.
Sometimes
it seems like God allows suffering because He is punishing me, most times I
think He is. My precious wife says
that’s not true, so I choose to believe what she says, since I don’t think too
clearly when I haven’t slept or am in pain.
7.
It’s
better to believe in God, with realistic expectations, than not to believe
because one day you will die.
8.
Though
perfectly able, God does not always heal our physical maladies (Of course there
are rare exceptions). However, on the other hand, He does heal our hearts.
9.
If
your expectation from God is that He will physically heal you, or undo your
calamity, you will be disappointed most of the time.
10.
God
always loves us, but the best way to experience His love is from a genuine and
caring friend.
Below
is a detailed explanation of the physical conditions and related symptoms of
severe chronic pain I have suffered in an escalating way since March of
1993. I’m including this information,
not to invoke pity, but only so you realize my words are not just a bunch of
patronizing Christian lingo taken from a menu of ‘pat answers’ to life’s
problems. I know this information may
stagger the imagination, but I have medical documentation for everything
written. I have excluded some of the
maladies I suffer just to shorten this response. Over the last 12 years I have been diagnosed and/or treated by
over 50 doctors, surgeons, and other medical practitioners and my conditions
are so complex that in scientific terms is called a medical anomaly. I suffer severe daily chronic pain from
post-traumatic fibromyalgia & myofascial pain syndromes, anklyosing
spondylitis, (which is like rheumatoid arthritis in the spine), psoriatic
arthritis in knee joints, hip joints, ankles, and finger joints, post-operative
TMJ pain, (secondary to a fractured right mandibular condyle), chronic TMJ
headaches caused by misaligned jaw joint, plus degenerative osteoarthritis in
the jaw joints, tendonitis in the temporal tendons (that’s the ‘temple’ on the
side of the head), degenerative osteoarthritis in my cervical (neck), lumbar
& sacral discs (low back), degenerative osteoarthritis in my right ankle
joint (right ankle has no synovial fluid or cartilage, plus bone spurs grown
back after the last surgery), heel spurs & gout (in toes), four herniated
cervical (C4-C7), scoliosis (right thoracic convex; ‘curved’ spine), kyphosis
(deformed thoracic disc causing ‘humpback’), lordosis (lumbar curve causing
‘sway back’), sacroiliitis (severe chronic pain in low back aka tailbone area),
narrowing of the lumbar (L1-L4) & 6% bone density loss (positive bone
density scans), progressive Raynaud’s disease (scleroderma is an idiopathic and
incurable disease, which causes the layers of skin inside the body and also the
epidermal layers of skin to thicken causing gross swelling and pain in hands
& fingers; the symptoms include severe pain and gross swelling of the
joints, especially the extremities; it also make swallowing difficult and if
the disease continues progressing it causes death), bilateral carpal tunnel
syndrome (post operative condition, unresolved with positive nerve conduction
velocity tests), bilateral epicondylitis (chronic soft tissue pain medial side
of both elbow joints; post operative, unresolved, with positive NCV tests),
right lateral epicondylitis (chronic soft tissue pain lateral side of right
elbow unresolved), dislocated left shoulder posterior, post operative resolved
with stainless steel implant; chronic nerve and joint pain.
In
addition to these painful conditions, I have other medical problems, including
chronic fatigue immune deficiency, chronic sleep disorder (damaged pituitary
from severe blunt force trauma to the head, with secondary hypopituitaryism),
positive antinuclear antigen (ANA) blood screen panel ranging b/t 180-320 was
accompanied with symptoms consistent with systemic lupus erythematosus
(including fevers, butterfly rashes, hair loss, kidney pain, etc.), elevated
eosinophils (a type of white blood cells), and depression, secondary to chronic
pain issues. On September 21, 2001 I had a heart attack with no apparent
myocardial infarction.
My
final thoughts to you come from two passages of scripture that have for me
become the most reassuring and comforting in all of my distress and pain:
2
Corinthians 1:3-7 Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort
who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted
by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our
comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your
comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort , which
is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also
suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are
sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort . NASU
2
Corinthians 4:16-5:2 Therefore we do not lose
heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed
day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal
weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things
which are seen , but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know
that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building
from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in
this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. NASU
Psalms
119:67 Before I was afflicted I went
astray, But now I keep Your word. NASU
God bless and keep you always,
Craigo
Craig Bluemel - The Bible Answer
Stand Ministry (www.bibleanswerstand.org)
1 Peter 3:15 Always be ready to
give a logical defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope that is
in you, but do it courteously and respectfully.
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