Why Does God Allow Suffering? – Psalm 23, Revelation 21:1-5

I don’t need to persuade you—
the evidence is all around:
a child’s bruised silence,
a friend’s lost job,
cancer cells multiplying unseen,
an earthquake flattening homes in Afghanistan,
a surfer pulled under by a shark,
young people shot at a music festival,
sixty thousand gone in Gaza.

If you are loving,
wouldn’t you stop this?
If you are powerful,
couldn’t you stop this?
And if you are both—
how can you be silent?

Some ask from the safety of a study,
an intellectual puzzle to be turned over.
Others whisper it in the dark valley,
their tears the only theology they can manage.
Both voices matter.

The Scriptures are not embarrassed by the question.
They groan: Why have you forgotten me?
What are you doing?
Anger. Confusion. Trouble.
These, too, are prayers.

And then Keller presses in:
Out of all the cultures that have ever existed,
we are the least equipped to deal with suffering.
We cushion it, medicate it,
numb it with entertainment,
avoid it as if avoidance were salvation.
But suffering comes anyway,
and when it comes, it strips away our illusions—
that we are in control,
that life is fair,
that pain only happens to other people.

And yet,
give up on God and the problem doesn’t vanish—
it multiplies.
Now earthquakes are accidents,
genocide is just nature red in tooth and claw.
As Dawkins admits:
some are hurt,
some are lucky,
there is no justice, no reason.
But when I see a child murdered,
I know it is wrong.
Something deep in me testifies
that every life matters,
that wrong is not illusion.

The story says it was not always so.
Once the world was perfect.
Then came our exile,
our rebellion,
our pushing God away—
and with it,
murder, envy, brokenness.
Suffering is the symptom of a deeper disease.

But the Bible spends less time asking why
and more time showing what God is doing.

And here is the heart:
God does not float above it all.
He has known it.
He healed the bleeding woman.
He wept for Lazarus.
He staggered beneath the cross.
For Christians, this is the scandal and the hope:
God himself has wounds.

So cry to him.
Rage at him.
Collapse into him.
He understands.

And more: he comforts.
When you are anxious, he is near.
When you are afraid, he is beside you.
When the walls fall in, he holds you.
Not karma. Not silence.
But a Shepherd walking the valley of shadows.

And even suffering can grow us.
The broken arm that teaches caution.
The wilderness that sharpens faith.
Paul’s strange words:
glory in your sufferings,
for they produce endurance,
character, hope.
Perhaps only later do we see it.

Hope—
that is the final word.
Everything has an expiration date.
Even sorrow.
Even death.

Revelation sings:
he will wipe every tear.
No more mourning,
no more crying,
no more pain.
All of it finished.
And Jesus will come,
judge evil,
set the world right.

So the ancient prayer endures:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come quickly.

Original message by Andrew West, The Bridge Church Macquarie Park NSW
7 September 2025