Why Does God Allow Pain, Suffering, and Death?

Why?

This single word falls from the lips of millions every day. Why did she get sick? Why did he die? Why is my child suffering? Why is the world full of wars, hunger, and injustice?

If God exists and is good - why does He allow this?

Philosophers have asked this question for thousands of years. Parents ask it at their sick child’s bedside. People who have lost everything ask it. And you’re probably asking it too - since you’re reading this article.

I’m not going to give you cheap answers. But I want to show you a perspective that changed my life. A perspective that the Bible provides.

The Problem of Evil - The Strongest Argument Against God?

Atheists often present the so-called “problem of evil” as a knockout argument against God’s existence:

1. If God is omnipotent - He can prevent evil
2. If God is good - He wants to prevent evil
3. Evil exists
4. Therefore, either God is not omnipotent, not good, or doesn’t exist

Sounds logical, right? At first glance, this argument seems irrefutable.

But is it really? What if there’s a good reason why God allows suffering? What if that reason is so great that it justifies even the worst pain?

Let me show you several perspectives that completely change how we view suffering.

Suffering as a Spiritual Wake-Up Call

I’ve noticed something interesting in my life and in the lives of people around me. When everything is going well - career, health, relationships - we easily forget about God. We live as if He doesn’t exist. We don’t need Him.

But when life hits hard? When a medical diagnosis sounds like a death sentence? When we lose someone dear? Suddenly we remember there’s someone greater. Suddenly we start praying.

The Psalmist wrote something that deeply moved me:

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.

— Ps 119:67 (ESV)

Do you see it? Affliction - pain, suffering, hardship - brought him back to the right path. Without that affliction, he would still be wandering.

C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the 20th century, put it in famous words:

Is suffering pleasant? No. But can it be necessary? Can it be what wakes us from spiritual slumber?

From my observation - yes. People often start remembering God only when they’re truly hit by life. Pain becomes a stimulus for changes we would never make in comfort.

The Lord Disciplines Those He Loves

The Bible presents a surprising perspective - suffering can be an expression of God’s love, not its absence:

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.

— Heb 12:5-6 (ESV)

Think of it like a parent-child relationship. A good father doesn’t let his child do everything - he corrects, admonishes, sometimes disciplines. Not because he hates the child, but precisely because he loves it and wants the best for it.

Imagine a small child running into the street. The father shouts, grabs them, maybe even gives them a smack. The child cries, is outraged - “daddy is mean!”. But was the father acting out of anger? No. He acted out of love. He knew a car could come any moment. The pain and fear the child experienced are nothing compared to what could have happened.

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

— Prov 3:11-12 (ESV)

When you’re going through difficulties, instead of thinking “God has abandoned me” - maybe it’s worth thinking “God is raising me.” This changes everything. Suffering stops being evidence of God’s indifference and becomes evidence of His care.

But why does God do this at all? What is His purpose?

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

— Heb 12:10-11 (ESV)

God doesn’t discipline for the sake of discipline. He has a concrete goal: that we may share His holiness. He wants us to become better versions of ourselves. More patient, humble, compassionate, spiritually strong.

Think about it - what qualities does suffering build? Perseverance that comfort cannot build. Empathy toward others who suffer. Humility when we realize our own fragility. Faith when we have nothing to lean on but God.

Secular wisdom says “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” The Bible goes further - it’s not just about strength, but about character transformation. God, like a personal trainer, knows that without effort there is no growth. Muscles grow under load, not at rest. Character is shaped in trials, not in comfort.

The fruit of this process? Righteousness and peace. But notice - they come later. During discipline, it’s hard. Only in hindsight do we see what it was for.

Pain Leads to Greater Good

I know this might sound like empty words - especially when you’re in the middle of suffering. But let me share a few stories from my own life.

From Loneliness to Love

As a teenager, I experienced tremendous pain of loneliness. I didn’t have a girlfriend, I didn’t understand male-female relationships, I felt rejected and unloved. It hurt. It really hurt.

But that pain forced me to act. I started learning - yes, relationships need to be learned too. I worked on myself. And you know what? That painful period led me to meet my beloved wife. If not for that pain of loneliness, I would never have changed. I would never have met her.

The Illness That Opened Our Eyes

My wife was chronically ill for years. Modern medicine threw up its hands. Doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her. We were on the verge of exhaustion - physical, emotional, spiritual.

But it was precisely this suffering that forced us to keep searching. Eventually, we discovered that the cause of most of her problems were parasites, which we treated with proper diet and medication. What’s more - through this journey we discovered a natural diet that greatly improved both our health. If not for those years of suffering, if the first diagnosis had been correct - we never would have found the real cause or changed to a healthier lifestyle.

COVID and the Birth of Immanuel

As I write these words, I’m just finishing a COVID infection. I got sick right during Christmas. Fever, weakness, no strength for anything.

And you know what? The only thing I felt like doing during that time was lying in bed and… reading Scripture. Contemplating the Lord’s path. Thinking about what really matters.

During those few days of illness, I contemplated matters of faith so intensely that I created the Immanuel website - the one you’re reading right now. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

— Rom 8:28 (ESV)

God works in everything - including pain, illness, hardship. This doesn’t mean He causes them. But it means He can use them for our good.

Life Is Just the Foyer

And now a perspective that changes absolutely everything.

Imagine you live 80 years. That’s a lot, right? A whole life full of experiences, joys, suffering.

Now imagine eternity. Infinity. Life that never ends.

What is 80 years compared to infinity? It’s not even a fraction. It’s less than the blink of an eye. It’s like the first second of a movie that lasts forever.

The apostle Paul, who himself went through unimaginable suffering - beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked - wrote something astounding:

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

— 2 Cor 4:17-18 (ESV)

Do you see it? Paul calls his sufferings - beatings, prison, hunger - “light momentary affliction”. Why? Because he viewed them through the lens of eternity.

Life on earth is just the foyer. A tutorial. A short test before real life. Whatever we experience here - even the worst things - is nothing compared to eternal happiness with God on the new earth.

And if you’ve lost someone dear? If you both believed in Christ - nothing is lost. You’ll have all eternity to enjoy each other. Not a few decades - eternity. This separation, though painful, is only temporary. The reunion will last forever.

Without Suffering There Is No Reward

And now a key thought I want you to consider.

If we didn’t experience negative things - pain, loss, frustration, suffering - what reward would we have in heaven?

Think about it. If life were easy, if everything came without effort, if we never lost anything - what would heaven be? Just more of the same?

Jesus spoke clearly about storing up treasures in heaven:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

— Mt 5:11-12 (ESV)

Do you see it? The reward depends on what we experience and how we experience it. Insults, persecution, suffering for faith - all of this builds our reward in heaven.

The apostle James goes even further:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

— Jas 1:2-4 (ESV)

Trials and experiences perfect us. They make us better. They prepare us for eternity.

Adam Mickiewicz, our great Polish poet, put it simply:

If you live a life without suffering - what merit will you have before God? How will you appreciate heaven if you’ve never experienced hell on earth?

Suffering is not punishment. It’s an opportunity. An opportunity for growth, for building character, for storing up treasures in heaven.

What the Bible Says About the Source of Suffering

But where did suffering come from in the first place? Did God create it?

No. God created a perfect world - without pain, without death, without suffering. The first humans lived in paradise, in complete harmony with God and creation.

But God also gave them something extremely valuable: free will. The ability to choose. And they chose disobedience.

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.”

— Gen 3:17-19 (ESV)

Suffering entered the world as a consequence of human choice, not God’s whim. God didn’t create evil - evil is the absence of good, the result of turning away from God.

Free will means the possibility of wrong choices. Without this possibility, we wouldn’t be truly free. We would be robots programmed for obedience. But God wanted children, not robots. He wanted a relationship based on love, and love requires freedom.

The world is now “broken” - but that’s not the end of the story. God promised to redeem it and create a new earth, where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Rev 21:4).

God Himself Experienced Suffering

And this is perhaps the most important point of all.

God doesn’t sit somewhere in heaven, indifferently watching our suffering. God became human Himself and experienced the worst that humanity can offer.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

— Isa 53:3-5 (ESV)

Jesus - God in human flesh - was betrayed by a friend, abandoned by disciples, falsely accused, beaten, humiliated, crucified. He died the most painful and humiliating death the ancient world devised.

God is not indifferent to suffering. He paid the highest price to overcome it. The cross is the answer to suffering - not a philosophical explanation, but a concrete act of love.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

— John 16:33 (ESV)

Practical Steps in Suffering

So what do we do when suffering comes? Because it will come - that’s certain.

1. Change the question. Instead of asking “why me?” - ask “what for?”. Don’t look for someone to blame, look for purpose. What does God want to achieve through this?

2. Seek God especially in difficult moments. Don’t run from Him - run to Him. He understands your pain better than anyone.

3. View suffering through the lens of eternity. 80 years compared to infinity is less than the blink of an eye. Your current pain is “light momentary affliction” compared to “eternal weight of glory”.

4. Let pain lead to growth. Don’t waste suffering. Learn from it. Let it perfect you.

5. Trust that God has a plan bigger than you can see. We don’t always understand “what for” in the moment of suffering. Sometimes perspective comes only after years. But God sees the whole picture.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

— Rom 5:3-5 (ESV)

Conclusion

Suffering is not meaningless. I know it’s hard to hear this in the middle of pain. But it’s true.

God uses suffering as an alarm clock that wakes us from spiritual slumber. Pain often leads to greater good that we wouldn’t see otherwise. Life on earth is just the foyer - a short test before eternity. And without suffering, there would be no reward in heaven.

Does this mean we should rejoice in pain? No. Jesus wept at His friend’s grave. We can weep too. But we can also trust that this pain has meaning. That God doesn’t waste it. That good can come from every suffering.

God Himself experienced the worst suffering - and overcame it. The resurrection is proof that death and pain don’t have the final word.