Why Does God Allow Suffering? A Promising Look At Hebrews 12

Losses and grief. Relationship problems. Despair and hopelessness. These are just a few trials that people face everyday. And when we feel like we’re being dragged through the mud, it’s hard not to ask the question: Why does God allow suffering in my life?

This also brings a secondary question: how long will I have to suffer? To find the answers, we can look to the Bible, in Hebrews 12 for hope and understanding.

For more on suffering, check out How to Survive a Trial and Overcome Suffering, Promising Bible Verses about Hope in Hard Times, and How to Stop Worrying and Give Your Worries to God

A true story of suffering and anger

I remember reading about a woman who experienced immense suffering, and I’ll never forget it. One day, a severe storm hit her area. High winds struck her nearby adult son’s house, causing the structure to collapse. There was only one survivor, and everyone else was killed from the impact. The real knife twist? This included not only her son, but all her adult children as well, who were over there partying it up.

Not only that, but earlier that day, she had been robbed. There was a fire on her property. Everything she owned, taken and burned.

Her response? Anger. Extreme anger towards God.

And who could blame her? Everything was taken from her in a matter of hours. Her family, her property, her livelihood. Gone.

All she had left was her husband, and he was having a meltdown of his own. She became so angry with his response (that he wasn’t angry too), that she lashed out at him. She told him to “curse God and die.” Very strong words coming from a heart so broken.

This woman doesn’t even have a name in the Bible. She is simply referred to as “Job’s wife.”

Whenever I read or hear messages on the story of Job, it’s easy to forget about this woman’s point of view. She blends into the background as we learn more about how Job suffered, how he didn’t lose faith, how he endured. These are all important lessons, and I’m not downplaying or discrediting it one bit. However, I think we must not forget Job’s wife.

She suffered great pain, more than most of us can take. And it’s not hard to see that she must have also asked the question. The question we ask when we’re experiencing a deep wounding:

Why does God allow suffering?

Let’s look at Hebrews 12

To answer this question, we can look to Hebrews 12:7-12 (bold emphasis mine).

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

Now, we can look at this passage two ways: from a positive standpoint or a negative one.

In the former, and the heart of this passage is this: God is a good Father. A father that loves his child will discipline them (Proverbs 13:24). And so by discipline, this is proof that we are heirs to the king. We are daughters and sons of the Most High. Through this discipline, through the pain, He is making us stronger– that we may share in HIS holiness.

God isn’t trying to harm you. He is not doing this out of spite. He is doing it to mold you into holiness. To yield peaceful fruit. To bring you into His glory and heal you. “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

We can support this fact through these additional verses:

Romans 8:17

17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 5:3-5

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

In the latter, if you have baggage with your earthly father, the concept of discipline and suffering may be distorted. Painful memories and deeply rooted shame can hinder our takeaway from Hebrews 12. But know this: God loves us so much more than an earthly father ever could (even a good one). His discipline is not like human discipline. For His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts.

There is a purpose in this. We don’t know what God’s plan is, and sometimes we may never truly see what He is doing. But we must have faith that this suffering will produce endurance, character, and hope.

Therefore, we must “lift up our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees,” as it says in Hebrews 12. Through the pain, we must still praise Him.

Praise Him from the prison, praise him from the pain, and praise him through the tears. If you need help doing this, listen to this song, Praise You Anywhere by Brandon Lake.

Why does God allow suffering? And for how long?

Even if we accept the suffering temporarily, we often find ourselves asking a secondary question, which is: how long? How long do we have to endure?

How long will we experience deep pain that feels inescapable?

We can find this answer in 1 Peter:

1 Peter 5:10

10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

The key phrase in this passage is, “a little while.” We don’t know what a “little while” means– it could be a day, it could be a month, and it could be years.

However, there is a promise that we may miss if we become too fixated on the “little while” part. And that promise is that He will restore you. How beautiful! This is something we should rejoice in, because there’s the proof in the pudding right there.

He “will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”

Steadfast means established. Firm means resistant. Strong means powerful.

Through our suffering, He is making us powerful to withstand the enemy, able to resist the fiery darts of the wicked, and securely established in Him.

He’s making us warriors. When? In a little while.

FAQs

Final thoughts

I pray that no matter how you’re suffering right now, you see that God is using this for your good. He is in your corner. Why does God allow suffering? To strengthen you. To help you. And to bring you closer to Him.

We never find out more about how Job’s wife handled her grief. The Bible does not tell us of her repentance, or how that unfolded. But, we do learn that Job was blessed with seven sons and three daughters. And that the daughters were more beautiful than any other women in the land.

This shows that Job’s wife was blessed after grief.

We can believe that she herself turned from her anger, as the abundance of blessings is described in the last section of Job 42. Not only did she receive more children, but it tells us that people came to eat bread and bring comfort. No doubt she was part of this blessing.

She only had to suffer for “a little while,” and then He restored her. And He will restore you too.

I pray this blesses you,

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