Have you ever found yourself praying faithfully, reading Scripture, trusting God with everything you have — and then waking up to find your world still in pieces?
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I have. And if you’re being honest, you probably have too.
There was a time in my life when I was attending church and doing everything “right.” Every morning, I was writing my prayers in my journal. I was serving, tithing, and having faith. Nevertheless, the diagnosis was made. Nevertheless, the relationship ended. When I knocked, the doors were still closed.”Why?” was the question I kept asking God.
This post is for you if you’ve ever asked yourself that question in a dark moment. One of the most straightforward, relatable, and profoundly spiritual questions we can pose is why God permits suffering, and God is not scared of it.
Together, let’s consider this and follow the guidance provided by Scripture.
When we are going through times it can be really hard to deal with the thought that God must be angry with us. This is one of the hurtful things we can think when we are struggling with something. The idea that God is mad at us can be very painful. We think to ourselves God must be angry, with me and that is a tough thing to handle.
When life gets tough our minds start searching for answers. Because we are designed to make sense of things we often come up with the possible reason. That God is punishing us that our struggles are Gods way of turning Gods back on us or getting back, at us for the mistakes we made.
But that is not the God of the Bible.
Let us think about Job. Job was not having a time because he did something wrong. Actually God said that Job was a good person. God said Job was “blameless and upright”.. Job had a lot of problems. His problems were some of the problems in the Bible. The story of Job shows us that God allowing suffering does not always mean we did something or that we do not have faith, in God. The story of Job and his suffering helps us understand that sometimes God allows suffering for reasons. Job and his suffering are very important to think about when we wonder why God allows suffering.
I want to tell you about my servant Job. He is a good man. There is nobody like him on this earth. Job is a person and he always tries to do the right thing. He loves God. He stays away, from bad things. My servant Job is a special person. He is blameless and upright a man who fears God and shuns evil just like I said.
— Job 1:8 (NIV)
God was not punishing Job. God was actually trusting Job. God was seeing a man that God loved much go through a really tough time. Not because God was not there but because God knew something that Job did not know yet.
Think about this for a moment. Is it possible that God really trusts you and that is why you are going through this time? God is letting you go through this.
That’s a different question than the one most of us ask. And it changes everything.
God Uses Hardship to Grow What Prayer Alone Cannot
Some things can only be built in you when you go through times. Things like patience and deep compassion and trust that does not shake. These things do not grow when life is easy. The things that make you strong like patience and compassion and trust that does not shake they grow when you are, under a lot of pressure.
Consider a diamond. A diamond does not form near the surface of the earth where the soil’s soft and warm.
A diamond forms miles deep under a lot of heat and a lot of pressure.
The very thing that seems like it will destroy the diamond is actually what helps to create the diamond.
The diamond needs this heat and pressure to form, which is an amazing thing when you think about it.
So the heat and pressure that seems bad is really what makes the diamond.
That is what why God allows suffering often looks like from the inside. It feels like crushing. But God is forming something in you that cannot be formed any other way.
Here are a few qualities that are often deepened specifically through hardship:
- Genuine empathy — People who have suffered can sit with others who are hurting in a way that those who haven’t simply cannot
- Unshakeable faith — Faith that has never been tested is still fragile; faith that has walked through fire and held on becomes bedrock
- Holy endurance — The ability to keep going when everything says stop is a spiritual gift refined in the hardest seasons
- Surrendered trust — When we’ve exhausted our own solutions, we finally learn to fully release our grip and let God lead
- A ministry of presence — Some of the most powerful servants of God are those whose own broken places became the doorways through which others find healing
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
— Romans 5:3–4 (NIV)
Paul doesn’t say we just endure suffering. He says we glory in it. Not because the pain is good, but because of what it produces. That is a radically different lens — and it’s the one God invites us into.
Read more about how God strengthens your character in difficulty: Daily Blessings — Finding Strength for Each New Day
Your Pain Has a Purpose in God’s Bigger Plan
This is the part that’s hardest to hold onto in the middle of the storm: your story is not finished yet.
One of the most remarkable things about Scripture is how many of God’s greatest servants went through their deepest valleys right before their greatest breakthroughs.
- Joseph was sold into slavery and imprisoned before becoming second in command over all of Egypt
- Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness feeling like a failure before God called him to lead a nation
- David was anointed as king and then ran for his life for years before sitting on the throne
- Paul was shipwrecked, imprisoned, and beaten — and wrote some of the most powerful letters of faith the world has ever known from a prison cell
None of those stories made sense in the middle. They only made sense in hindsight.
When we ask why God allows suffering, we are often asking from chapter three of a story that has twelve chapters. God is not confused about your situation. He is writing something beyond what you can currently see.
Can you trust the Author, even when you can’t read the next page?
Suffering Draws Us Into Deeper Intimacy with God
Here’s something I noticed in the hardest season of my life: I prayed differently when things were good versus when things were falling apart.
When life was smooth, my prayers were polished. Organized. Almost businesslike. But when I was desperate? My prayers sounded more like the Psalms. Raw. Honest. Clinging. “God, I don’t understand. But I’m not letting go.”
And somehow — in that desperation — I encountered God in a way I never had in the comfortable seasons. There is a nearness of God that some people only ever experience on their knees in the dark.
King David understood this. Psalm 22 begins with one of the most honest prayers in the Bible: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But it doesn’t stay there. It ends with praise. That is the arc of a faith being deepened, not destroyed.
Suffering strips away the noise. It removes our reliance on our own strength, our plans, our comfort. And in that stripped-down place, we discover that God has been there all along — not causing the pain, but present within it.
The question isn’t always “Why is this happening?” Sometimes the more powerful question is: “What are You showing me in this, Lord?”
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
— Psalm 34:18 (NIV)
He is not far from you in your pain. He is especially near.
If you want to go deeper in prayer during hard seasons, explore: Powerful Morning Prayers for Hard Days
✦ How to Stay Faithful When Life Feels Unfair
Knowing these truths in your head is one thing. Living them when your heart is broken is another. Here are practical ways to hold onto God when the answers don’t come quickly:
- Pray honestly, not perfectly. God can handle your anger, your confusion, your tears. He already knows. Bring the real you to Him.
- Keep a “faithful moments” journal. Write down every time you saw God come through in the past. On dark days, read it. Memory is powerful medicine against despair.
- Find one person who can sit with you. You were not made to carry heavy seasons alone. Let someone who loves God and loves you walk alongside you.
- Resist the urge to make permanent decisions in temporary pain. Don’t walk away from faith, your church, or God because of how you feel in a hard moment. Seasons change.
- Ask God for one thing to be grateful for each day. Not to pretend the pain isn’t real — but to keep your eyes open to the grace that is always present alongside the grief.
- Let Scripture speak when you don’t have words. Read the Psalms. Let David’s words be your prayer when your own run out.
You Are Not Forgotten
If you’ve made it this far, I want you to hear something directly: your faithfulness is not wasted, and your pain has not gone unnoticed.
Understanding why God allows suffering doesn’t always mean getting a clear, tidy answer in this lifetime. Sometimes it means choosing to trust a God whose ways are higher than ours — not blindly, but with the kind of hard-won, battle-tested faith that says, “Even if I don’t understand, I know who holds me.”
The God who let His own Son walk through betrayal, agony, and death — and then raised Him to life — is the same God who is walking through your valley with you. The cross is proof that God does not waste suffering. He redeems it.
Your story is still being written. The chapter you’re in right now is not the last one.
So hold on. Keep praying. Keep showing up. And trust that the same God who brought the dawn has not forgotten your night.
May God bless you with peace, clarity, and the deep assurance of His presence today.
A Simple Prayer for Today
Lord, I don’t have all the answers.
But I know You do. I choose to trust You
even when I can’t see the way forward.
Hold me in this season. Grow me.
Use even this for Your glory and my good.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
