Where is God? Why doesn't he do something about suffering! Part 1

Right now, so many people are suffering. Perhaps you are. There are two ways we all suffer. We suffer when we ourselves are victims of other people or other things. We suffer when we have to watch people we love suffer - particularly our children. 

This raises big questions about God. 

You see, whenever we see or experience suffering, we want to stop it. Often it is all so unfair and so wrong!  Not only do we want to stop it, but, if we could we certainly would, no question about it. We do whatever we can. Doctors train for around 6-9 years so that they can help people who suffer. We pay loads on taxes so that people can get help through NHS. Our most brilliant minds in the world are doing science trying to find out how to help sufferers. To want to help is human.

Sadly, too much of the time we are helpless. We find too often we can only watch people as they suffer. I told a story in a sermon last week of a young Christian woman, 21 yrs old, married 18 months and had a 3 month old boy. She was so happy. That was before her grief. He husband was doing some DIY, something went wrong, he was engulfed in flames. For the next 12 days his wife was at his bedside in hospital. She could hardly bear to look at him, but neither could she leave him. His head was twice its normal size, he had hardly any skin, he was in terrible pain. All she could do was look on, utterly helpless, until he died. Suffering  is deeply distressing. We even feel angry with ourselves because we cannot help but want to.

This is why we get angry with God - and rightly so. That's how we see it.

But sadly, many people go from being understandably and rightly angry with God to totally rejecting Him, writing Him off and even denying He exists. Again, these are understandable responses, but not helpful. In fact, they make things worse.

In my next blog I will begin to address this issue head on.