Many Christians carry a painful contradiction: they were taught that faith brings blessing, yet they experience relentless hardship. When suffering strikes, they often spiral into guilt “Did I sin?”, confusion “Why didn’t God answer?”, or silent abandonment of faith. This piece addresses that contradiction with theological depth and human honesty.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: The honest question no one in church wants to ask out loud
2. The Question Every Christian Eventually Asks
3. Understanding Suffering Through a Biblical Lens
4. Three Root Causes of Suffering the Bible Identifies
– The Consequence of a Broken World (The Fall)
– The Reality of Spiritual Warfare
– The Refining Purpose of God
5. Why God Does Not Always Remove Suffering Immediately
6. What Suffering Is NOT (Breaking Common Misconceptions)
7. How to Survive Spiritually When Suffering Feels Unbearable
8. What the Cross Tells Us About a Suffering God
9. Conclusion — Suffering Is Not the End of Your Story
10. Key Takeaway
Introduction
I remember sitting beside my uncle in a Lagos Badagry hospital ward in 1998, watching him fight for his life after a diagnosis that came out of nowhere. He was one of the most devoted Deeper Life man I had ever known. He fasted, he prayed, he gave to the poor without being asked. And yet there he was, fighting a battle none of us understood. Somewhere between the smell of antiseptic and the sound of his laboured breathing, as young I was then, I whispered a question I had never let myself ask before: “Why is there so much suffering in the world?”
If you are reading this, I suspect you have asked the same question, maybe not in a hospital ward, but in a moment just as heavy. Perhaps you prayed over a business that still collapsed. Perhaps you buried someone you loved and left the graveside with more questions than peace. Perhaps you are in Nigeria right now, watching everything become more expensive, more uncertain, bad news everyday, inflation and greedy politicians, more exhausting, and you are wondering quietly whether God is paying attention.
I have not written this piece as a collection of pat answers or motivational phrases. It is an honest, biblically grounded exploration of one of the most important questions any human being, and especially any Christian will ever ask. I want us to look at this question squarely, without flinching, and find not just comfort, but understanding.
The Question Every Christian Eventually Asks
The question of why there is so much trouble and suffering in the world is not new. Philosophers call it the “problem of evil,” and theologians call it “theodicy” from the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (dike). Put simply: if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and completely good, why does He allow innocent people to suffer?
This question has broken the faith of some people and deepened the faith of others. I believe it depends entirely on what you do with it, whether you run from it or walk straight into it with your Bible open and your heart honest.
What I find remarkable is that this question is already inside the Bible. The prophet Habakkuk asked it: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2). Job screamed it for thirty-seven chapters. David soaked the Psalms with it. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, cursed the day he was born (Jeremiah 20:14). These were not people of small faith. They were people of enormous faith who refused to pretend that pain was not real.
So if you are asking this question, you are not failing spiritually. You are actually participating in one of the most ancient and sacred conversations in scripture.
Understanding Suffering Through a Biblical Lens
The Bible does not offer suffering as a theological problem to be solved from a distance. It offers it as a lived reality to be walked through with God. The scriptures never promise that following Christ will make you immune to pain. In fact, Jesus said plainly in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Notice He said “you will have trouble” not “you might” or “you could.” It was a statement of certainty. The Christian life, as presented in the New Testament, is not a life without suffering; it is a life where suffering does not have the final word.
To understand life’s challenges through the Bible’s lens, I need to separate it into what it actually is, what causes it, and what God intends to do with it in our lives. These are three very different conversations, and collapsing them into one is where most of our confusion begins.
Three Root Causes of Suffering the Bible Identifies
1. The Consequence of a Broken World – The Fall
The first and most foundational reason why there is so much troubles and wontoness in the world is found in Genesis 3. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, they did not just make a personal mistake, they introduced brokenness into the very fabric of creation. The Apostle Paul describes this in Romans 8:22 with a vivid phrase: “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
In other words, the world we live in is a wounded world. The flooding that destroys communities in Benue State, the Platue massacre, the human rituals, the diseases that take young lives, the economic structures that keep millions in poverty and the all evil occurrences; these are symptoms of a creation operating in a state of rupture. God did not design this. Humanity, through the exercise of the very free will God gave us, introduced this condition.
This is important because it means much of the suffering in the world is not God’s active will, it is the consequence of a world that has been damaged by human choice, compounded over thousands of years. When you ask why God does not simply fix it, the deeper answer is that He has already set a plan in motion to do exactly that through Christ (Revelation 21:4), and He is working within time and human history to bring that restoration.
2. The Reality of Spiritual Warfare
The second cause of human problems that the Bible clearly identifies is spiritual in origin. The book of Job is the most direct treatment of this reality in scripture. Job was a righteous man, God Himself declared it; and yet Satan was permitted to bring catastrophic suffering into his life as a direct assault on his faith (Job 1:6–12).
Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world.” Some of the suffering we experience is not random. It is targeted opposition from an enemy who understands that breaking a believer in a moment of crisis is more effective than any other strategy.
This does not mean every problem is demonic. But it does mean that some suffering, especially the kind that comes in waves and seems specifically designed to destroy your faith, your family, or your purpose, has a spiritual dimension that requires a spiritual response.
3. The Refining Purpose of God
The third cause, and perhaps the most difficult to receive is that God sometimes permits suffering as a deliberate tool of formation in our lives. James 1:2–4 is uncomfortably clear about this: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
I am not saying God causes suffering gleefully or that He is indifferent to our pain. I am saying that God, in His infinite wisdom, is capable of using what was meant to destroy us as material for building us. The same fire that destroys wood refines gold. What determines the outcome is what you are made of and what you do inside the furnace.
The Nigerian context makes this profoundly relevant. I have met or heard, men and women who emerged from bankruptcy, illness, or loss with a depth of character, a compassion for others, and a clarity of purpose that simply could not have been produced any other way. They will tell you themselves, they would not trade what the fire gave them, even though they would never ask to return to it.
Why God Does Not Always Remove Suffering or Challenges Immediately
This is perhaps the hardest part of the conversation. If God is powerful enough to stop human suffering and good enough to want to, why does He sometimes seem to do nothing?
The honest answer involves three things the Bible is clear about.
First, God operates within time differently than we do. Peter tells us that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). What feels like God’s silence or delay from inside our experience of time may look entirely different from the perspective of eternity. This is not a dismissal of your pain, it is an invitation to trust a perspective larger than your current moment.
Second, God often works through suffering rather than around it. Joseph spent thirteen years in slavery and imprisonment before his elevation. Those years were not God abandoning Joseph, they were God preparing Joseph for an assignment that required exactly the kind of character those years produced (Genesis 50:20). If God had delivered Joseph in year one, Egypt would have starved and Joseph’s family would have been destroyed. The delay was not neglect. It was precision.
Third, God respects the freedom He gave humanity. If God intervened to stop every consequence of human sin and poor decision-making, He would essentially be overriding the free will He intentionally granted us. A world where God controls every outcome is not a world of love and relationship, it is a world of divine puppetry. Real love requires the genuine possibility of suffering.
What Suffering or Pain Is NOT – Breaking Common Misconceptions
I want to break three damaging ideas that circulate in many African Christian communities, ideas that cause enormous harm when suffering arrives.
Suffering does not mean God has abandoned you. Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). If the Son of God could feel abandoned by the Father and still be in the center of God’s redemptive plan, then your feeling of abandonment is not evidence of God’s absence.
Suffering does not always mean you sinned. The disciples asked Jesus about a blind man: “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus answered, “Neither” (John 9:2–3). Yet many believers endure an additional layer of suffering, shame and spiritual accusation, because of a theology that treats every difficulty as divine punishment. This is false, and it causes unnecessary damage.
Suffering does not mean your faith has failed. Paul prayed three times for a physical ailment to be removed. God said no and explained that His grace was sufficient and His strength was made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10). If unanswered prayer were evidence of insufficient faith, then the Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was faithless. That conclusion is obviously wrong. Sometimes “no” is an answer, not an absence.
How to Survive Spiritually When Challenges Feels Unbearable
Knowing the theology of suffering is one thing. Surviving it at 3 a.m crisis, when your chest feels like it is caving in is another. Here is what the Bible and lived experience actually teaches about navigating suffering without losing your soul.
Be honest with God before you are polished. The Psalms are full of raw, unfiltered emotion directed at God. Psalm 13 opens with “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?” God did not strike David down for this. He preserved it in His holy scripture. You are allowed to tell God the truth about your pain.
Find community, not isolation. One of the enemy’s most effective strategies during suffering is to convince you to go through it alone. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 reminds us that two are better than one, because if one falls, the other can help lift them up. In many Nigerian communities, there is a church or fellowship close enough to walk to. Use it. Allow people to carry part of what you are carrying.
Separate your feelings from your faith. Your feelings are real and valid. But they are not always accurate reporters of reality. The feeling that God is gone does not mean God is gone. Anchor yourself to what you know rather than what you feel. What you know is Romans 8:38–39: nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Give your suffering a purpose, even a small one. Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi Holocaust, observed that those who found even small meaning in their suffering were the most likely to survive psychologically. This aligns with Paul’s testimony; he turned his prison time into letters that now shape global Christianity. Ask: What is this teaching me? Who might I be able to help because of what I am going through?
Keep your eyes on the ending. Revelation 21:4 is not a spiritual metaphor.
What the Cross Tells Us About a Suffering God
Anytime i walk back to that hospital ward in my memory, and ask why there is so much suffering and pain in the world, the cross becomes my clearest answer. It shows me that God is not distant from human pain; He entered it. In The Bible, we see Christ suffer injustice, rejection, and deep agony.
So when we look at the brokenness around us, the loss, the hardship, the unfairness; we are not looking at something God is unaware of. Jesus has experienced it. People may feel abandoned in their sessons of challenges, but the cross says otherwise.
If God could bring redemption out of the cross, then even in a world full of pain, we can believe that He is still working toward restoration.
Conclusion: Suffering Is Not the End of the Story
I may not fully explain why suffering exists, but I have learned that it is not the end of the story. The world is broken, yes, and we feel it daily, but God is not finished with it.
People may look at their situation and see only pain, but I remind myself and others that suffering is not final. The cross was not the conclusion, there was resurrection.
So even in a world filled with hardship, we hold on to hope. What we see now is not all there is. God is still writing, still restoring, still bringing meaning out of pain. The day is coming when God will permanently put an end to human evil atrocities and put an end to human suffering.
Key Takeaway
Even in a world full of suffering, we trust that God is present, purposeful, and cares.
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