Have you ever said, “God, I thought you loved me?”
Maybe you’re reading this today, and you’re in a dark place of suffering. And you can’t understand why. Maybe you feel like God has abandoned you. Or hates you. Or is punishing you.
Those are honest, raw questions — the kind that keep us awake at night and leave us staring at the ceiling, wondering how a good God could let this happen. God, if you’re so good, why am I suffering?
If you’ve ever whispered those words (or shouted them in your car), you are not alone. We all have times of pain, asking God to explain a life that feels unexplainable.
Here’s the hard reality: Nowhere in scripture does God promise us that by making good, godly choices, we’ll avoid suffering in this life.
Jesus said, “Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Some say, “I want to stay close to God so nothing bad happens.” But God is not a charm you wear to ward off suffering.
The truth is suffering follows evil. When sin came into the world, so did suffering. But the good news is that God didn’t leave us to face our suffering alone. Jesus entered our suffering on the cross.
Speaking of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain… he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:3-5)
The question we should ask is, what good does God want to bring out of my suffering?
God wants to turn your suffering for good.
It may not feel like it now, and you may not see how it will unfold in the future, but God will take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it into good. It’s one of the promises God gives us in scripture.
Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
God wants to use suffering as an opportunity for deeper worship.
Imagine losing all ten of your kids, your wealth, your servants, your social standing, and the respect of your wife all in a single day. It would be unbearable. But that was the suffering Job had to endure during his lifetime.
He could have railed at God, cussed him out, cursed him, and turned his back on him. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he worshiped him.
Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God. (Job 1:20-22)
Job worshiped God in crisis because he had made it a practice to worship God before the crisis. Don’t wait for the crisis to teach you to worship. Do it now, and it will be your lifeline in suffering!
God wants to use your suffering to open your heart and eyes to see him more clearly.
Where’s God? That’s the question we often scream in the thick of suffering. It’s often easy to feel like He’s abandoned us and left us to our pain. The reasoning is, if we don’t feel him, he must not be there.
But our feelings are not foundational. But the word of God is. His promise still stands true, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
In all of Job’s suffering, the loss, and the pain, God was right there. This became a clarifying moment for Job.
At the end of his suffering, he said to God, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” (Job 42:5-6)
It was there that he began to see God more clearly in his life. God will do the same for you.
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