You may ask, 'If there is a God who really cares about us, why does he permit so much suffering?' because everybody has suffered or has witness suffering. Some of you become embittered and feel that if there is a God, he does not really care about us. Or you may even feel that there is no God. Thus, many people cannot understand why a good God would allow bad things to happen. They question whether he really cares about us or whether he exists at all. And many of them feel that suffering will always be a part of human existence.
It is founded on a solidly based faith that Paradise is inevitable. (Heberws 11:1) God promises "Not one word out of all the good words that Jehovah your God has spoken to you has failed. They have all come true for you. Not one word of them has failed." "God is not a man that he should tell lies . . . Has he himself said it and will he not do it, and has he spoken and will he not carry it out?" "Jehovah of armies has sworn, saying: 'Surely just as I have figured, so it must occur; and just as I have counseled, that is what will come true.'"-Joshua 23:14; Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 14:24. Why not view God as "the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, He the One who firmly established it, who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited."-Isaiah 45:18.
The Bible states: "If you search for [God], he will let himself be found by you." "There exists a God in the heavens who is a Revealer of secrets." "The Sovereign Lord Jehovah will not do a thing unless he has revealed his confidential matter to his servants the prophets."—1 Chronicles 28:9; Daniel 2:28; Amos 3:7. The apostle Paul wrote: "When you received God's word, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God."-1 Thessalonians 2:13. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, called the Bible "the best gift God has ever given to man . . . But for it we could not know right from wrong."
To understand why God has permitted suffering and what he will do about it, we need to appreciate how he made us. He did more than create us with just a body and a brain. He also created us with our mental and emotional makeup called free will. Do you appreciate having the freedom to choose what you will do and say, what you will eat and wear, what kind of work you will do, and where and how you will live? Or would you want someone to dictate your every word and action every moment of your life? The Bible tells us that God created man in his 'image and likeness,' and one of the faculties God himself has is freedom of choice. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 7:6) When he created humans, he gave them that same wonderful faculty—the gift of free will. That is one reason why we find it frustrating to be enslaved by oppressive rulers. So the desire for freedom is no accident, for God is a God of freedom. The Bible says: "Where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:17) Hence, God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will. To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. Our brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice.
Unlimited freedom would mean anarchy in society. There have to be laws to guide human activities. God's Word says: "Behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness." (1 Peter 2:16) God wants free will to be regulated for the common good. He purposed for us to have, not total freedom, but relative freedom, subject to the rule of law. "You are slaves of no one except God." His laws, more than any laws devised by humans, provide the best guide. "I, Jehovah, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit yourself, the One causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk."-Isaiah 48:17. we were created to be happiest when subject to God's laws for human behavior. It is similar to being subject to God's physical laws. For instance, if we ignore the law of gravity and jump off a high place, we will be injured or killed. If we ignore the internal laws of our body and stop eating food, drinking water, or breathing air, we will die.
The prophet Jeremiah says: "It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step. Correct me, O Jehovah." (Jeremiah10:23, 24) So in every way humans were created to live under God's rulership, not their own.
Obedience to God's laws would not have been burdensome for our first parents. Instead, it would have worked for their welfare and that of the entire human family. Had the first pair stayed within the limits of God's laws, all would have been well. In fact, we would now be living in a wonderful paradise of pleasure as a loving, united human family! There would not have been wickedness, suffering, and death.
-Aleman
