First, we have to recognize that the problem of tragedy, injustice and suffering is a problem for everyone no matter what their beliefs are. Now, if you believe in God and for the first time experience or see horrendous evil, you rightly believe that that is a problem for your belief in God, and you’re right – and you say, “How could a good and powerful God allow something like this to happen?”

But it’s a mistake (though a very understandable mistake) to think that if you abandon your belief in God it somehow is going to make the problem easier to handle.

i think of this a lot. especially when working around people who have experienced extreme suffering (usually from other countries, etc). one thing I realized for myself in processing pain is that i am able to prioritize better when my heart is broken. the simplest things become treasures. a smile, an encouragement, dinner with friends. maybe the lord knows what Carly Simon so eloquently put in her song "...there's more room in a broken heart..." you know what I mean? 

Regrettably, these and many other scenes like them happen every day. Suffering is part of life. Why do these things have to happen, you ask. Don’t ask me. I don’t know.

I do know that suffering is a given. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Suffering will come. I know that. And suffering is no respecter of persons. It eventually comes to everybody, nobody is immune.

And suffering is painful. I know that. It hurts. Sometimes a little, sometime a lot. And it’s not predictable. I know that. You don’t ever know when it’s coming. In fact, most of the time it blind-sides you. It comes at inopportune times.

And so, it’s not a matter of whether there will ever be any suffering in your life, but a matter of how you will handle it when it comes.

Suffering is a learning experience. At least for the person seeking to serve God. It teaches us, first of all, how good it is not to suffer. It teaches us that we are not so much in control of our lives as we perhaps thought (Job 1). It teaches us the value of putting our confidence in God and His word (Psa.. 119:71). It teaches us that God is in control, that He allows certain things, but doesn’t always tell us why (Eccles. 3:1-8).

Suffering is good discipline. The Hebrew writer, quoting Proverbs 3:11-12, says, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Hi; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” We don’t always know what is best for us. He does. “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Suffering builds character. But only if you are trained by it. Suffering either makes you better or it makes you bitter. James says it brings patience. “The testing of your faith produces patience,” he says (Jas. 1:2). Character is seen in the ability to look beyond, the ability to endure adversity with resolve and without bitterness, the ability to focus on the better in spite of the worse, the determination to do right in pernicious circumstances, and mostly character comes from experience and the wisdom it produces, coupled with simple faith in God and His providential care. Suffering produces character if it is endured in faith.

Suffering turns us toward God. When a man suffers, he’s much more likely to look heavenward. Suffering makes us long for something better, a place where there will be no suffering, no sorrow, no pain, no heartache. Just a little suffering can make heaven more desirable, more real (Rev. 21:4). And, paradoxically, it can make hell more real, too. Who can have pain and suffering in the here and now and not envision how it might be if such were an eternal existence?

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

If we want to be part of the 144,000 and “follow Jesus everywhere he goes,” then where does he go?  By his living example, he goes to the outcasts, the despised, the rejected, the hurting, the hopeless, the diseased, the demon-possessed, the broken and the needy.

Because of this experience, I began to realize that I had a talent. I had an ability. I had an opportunity to relate to people to whom no one else in my immediate area could relate. A couple months later when I was in New York I met an elder in the Church who had a Mongoloid child. I could relate to him. I could help him realize that there were others who shared his burden and his problem. Sometime later in my own congregation a family that we loved very much had a child born with the same problem. Once again we could help, advise, and relate to their needs. We could help them get programs that were useful to them and to their child. You see I have a talent and an ability that nobody else has in my immediate area--to relate to people and to bring Christ into the lives of people who are experiencing this kind of difficulty.

But I cannot go to a man who has lost his father and say I know how you feel, because at this time I do not. I cannot go to a man who has lost his mother, his child, his brother or his sister and meet his needs because I have not had those experiences. I cannot go to a teen-ager who has divorced parents and say I know how you feel, because I do not. I do not have the slightest idea how they feel. But some of you do. Some of you have had these experiences, and you have weathered the storm. You can go to people and relate to their needs. You can help them through their difficulties. You have a talent. What are you doing with that talent?

My enduring my suffering helps others endure theirs

But I think even far more fundamental and far more important than this is the fact that if Christians did not suffer, they would be totally and completely incapable of doing what they were put here to do. God intends for his followers to communicate with the world, to bring Jesus Christ into the lives of people. You cannot communicate with a man unless you are enduring or have endured some of the same things that he has endured. As a matter of fact, I believe that the bad experiences that you and I have to put up with and that we all undergo from time to time are actually talents. They are actually things that enable us to communicate with our fellow man and meet his needs. I hope you will pardon this very personal reference but I do not really know any other way to present what I am trying to say here than to show you in my own life what God has done and how things have worked to his glory.

First of all, if becoming a Christian would automatically unravel all the various problems that confront a person in life, then we would have people flocking to religion to get away from their problems. The way it is, there are some people using religion as an escape mechanism when that is not what God intended. God wants us to serve him because we love him, not out of fear. It would be unreal and unrealistic for us to really believe that somehow being a Christian ought to exempt us from the problems that other people have to endure.

I am sure that no preacher would want to bring that kind of pain and suffering into a man's life, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes it takes pain, sometimes it takes suffering, sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us realize that we need God.

When man was put upon the earth he was told to be fruitful, to replenish the earth, to subdue it. His first responsibility upon the earth (his only responsibility when he was first here) was to "care for the garden," to take care of the earth, to make sure that the earth was properly nurtured and properly supervised. The essence of that command still exists. Man still has the responsibility to take care of this beautiful creation that God has given us. Much of the suffering and tragedy man experiences is because he has not discharged this responsibility.