If you’ve read our “About Us” page, you know that it was two family health crises that drove us to start searching the Bible seriously for answers.  The topic of Pain and Suffering was the most difficult for me to process, and one of the most important. 

I think our desire to see God reigning relates to our innate desire for justice.  In our minds, God is just, therefore he rules his world with justice.  But in our human way of thinking, justice and retribution are synonyms.  So in the hidden corners of my mind, when trouble came, I wondered, what is God punishing us for?  Where did we go so far wrong?  It required a lot of study to finally conclude that problems are facts of life to be expected while we’re living in a fallen world.  God will use them for our good, but that doesn’t mean that he caused them, or even intended them for us.

So, if you’re dealing with pain and suffering, it doesn’t mean that you’ve somehow fallen out of God’s grace.  It doesn’t mean that you’ve offended God so badly that he’s given up on you.  It may be more likely that God wants to bless you, though in ways you would really rather avoid and be spared.

I couldn’t leave this topic without exploring two more fundamental questions:  What about the doctrine of God’s Providence, and How Exactly is God involved in our world?  I decided to explore those aspects of this topic in two sidebars.