Warm hellos once again friends, brethren, fellow laborers, spiritual family, and scattered children of God from here on the Gulf Coast of lower Alabama. My wife and I pray and hope this finds you doing well, and that again your week has been blessed.

I’ve carefully noticed over the last few months a thread that is woven throughout my Sabbath messages, letters, and Bible Basics weekly studies. I myself have over these last few years been challenged with one health difficulty after another.

It seems that almost every week in our prayer requests received and sent out there is a new notification of someone being diagnosed with a serious illness, disease, cancer, surgery, or injury of some sort.

Brethren from around the globe regularly reach out to us for prayer, anointed cloths, and encouragement. Recently a younger person contacted me and was in severe pain for several days…and was finally operated on due to appendicitis. We were so thankful it did not burst, and they are recovering.

So a question that comes up, and we ourselves may ask at times is, why do good people have to suffer – when not so good people seem to get away with things?

The Psalmist asked this. “For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like other men.” (Psalm 73:3-5)

I remember years ago reading a booklet “Why Does God Allow Suffering?” that discussed some of the difficult things we struggle with when people who are trying to live the right way get hit with painful trials and tragedies. The booklet brings out: “Perhaps the suffering most difficult to understand is that which seems to come out of nowhere and for no discernible reason. We must realize that individual tragedies may occur over which we have no control and that are impossible for us to foresee. In such instances the Scriptures encourage us to pray, asking God to remove or relieve the problem or help us deal with the difficulty and learn.”
“Often the specific cause of instances of suffering simply cannot be precisely explained-at least not in this lifetime. Sometimes the best we can do is to accept it as explainable only by what the Bible calls “time and chance” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

Although God does not cause accidents, neither does He micromanage the lives of every human being to prevent them all. Paul tells us that in this life we see through “a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV). We will never fully understand some things during this life, but we will in the world to come. “We should realize that even suffering that is a result of time and chance is not causeless. If it cannot be connected to a specific behavior, it is often nevertheless a consequence of one or more behavioral patterns followed by the human race since creation.”

The booklet referred to Ecclesiastes 9:11-12. “I returned and saw under the sun that-The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them.”

This does not mean that an Almighty God is unaware of calamitous events and they somehow take him by surprise. He is aware of each sparrow that falls to the ground. (Matthew 10:29)  So with any seemingly random occurrence God is still sovereign, as it is always His decision whether to allow that occurrence to proceed or not. He can always intervene. Yet, many times He simply chooses not to. To us humans that can be difficult to understand and/or accept.

However, God has not completely predestined our future fate and events either. And He allows events to take place that we are puzzled by.

We might ask, why did this have to happen to me or someone else I love?

Humanly we don’t always have an answer. Even if a person puts forth his or her best effort in work, strategy, knowledge and wisdom while there is life, that does not guarantee success in all of these and shield against calamity.

God allows human beings to make decisions. Some decisions will bring good results and some will bring bad results and consequences for the person and for others affected by the decision. We must live each day at a time and make the most of each day.

We don’t know what the next day will bring. “Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.” (Proverbs 27:1)

We find the same instruction in James 4:13-14. Exercising faith is challenged by the appearance of unexpected negative events. This physical life you and I live is a time of testing and preparation. Our eyes must be focused on the future and our ultimate destiny. Trials and afflictions can either strengthen us – or distract us.

King David wrote, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all.” For some, their deliverance is death with the ultimate positive outcome the event of the future resurrection.

The apostle Paul quotes evidently from the instructions given by the LORD to Joshua through Moses, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 and Deuteronomy 31:7-8) The Greek is emphatic, “I will never, ever, ever leave you!”

God’s love for his called out people is also voiced in Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

So, yes friends, it is very matter-of-factly hard to face these difficult experiences, “trials” as many children of God call them, but we can face them with faith to be made ready for our ultimate destiny as faithful children of God in His kingdom!

Thankfully this physical life is not all there is. Thankfully there will be a change. And thankfully there is a glorious future coming.

Some day we will better understand the “why” God allows suffering.

Arms up friends! Our sincere prayers and thoughts are with you daily. Thanks in advance for your heartfelt prayers for us.