Everywhere we turn, we see pain and brokenness. Wars rage. Cancer steals lives. Depression, anxiety, and violence leave their mark on nearly every community. Naturally, we ask: Why? If God exists, why would he allow so much suffering?
That question is not abstract. It’s deeply personal.
I know it is for me. I’ve gone through seasons of prolonged anxiety and depression—panic attacks that lasted not just for hours, but for days and even weeks. I’ve wrestled with God in the middle of those dark moments. And I know many others who, when faced with suffering, have found their faith shaken—or have even walked away from belief in God entirely.
There are no easy answers. But that doesn’t mean there are no answers.
A Godless Universe Doesn’t Satisfy
In her book Why?: Looking at God, Evil, and Personal Suffering, Sharon Dirckx makes a striking point. She asks: When we ask “Why is there so much suffering?”—who are we addressing? If there’s no God, then the question itself has no real addressee. In a godless universe, suffering is just what happens. Molecules misfire. Cells mutate. People harm each other. That’s it.
But as Dirckx points out, that answer feels hollow. We don’t just observe suffering. We feel it. We hate it. We cry out against it. Something in us says, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” But where does that outrage come from?
If suffering is simply natural, why do we respond to it as though it’s unnatural?
The Bible Doesn’t Minimize Suffering
This is where Christianity gives us something uniquely honest and hopeful. When you read the Bible, you’ll see that suffering is not minimized or glossed over. In fact, it fills the pages of Scripture.
We read about Job, whose cries of anguish rise up from the pit of despair. We read the Psalms—prayers filled with confusion, grief, and even anger. Jesus himself weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. Suffering is not ignored in Scripture; it is acknowledged. It is mourned. It is taken seriously.
Why? Because, according to the Bible, suffering points to a greater truth: the world is not as it should be. Something has gone wrong. Sin has fractured creation. Pain, death, and evil are not part of the original design—they are intruders in a world that was once “very good.”
The God Who Suffers with Us
And this is where the Christian message becomes radically different from anything else.
Christians believe that God did not remain distant or detached. He didn’t simply pity us from afar. Instead, God entered into our world. In Jesus Christ, God took on human flesh. And when he did, he didn’t come to scold us—he came to suffer with us.
Jesus was crucified, dying a slow and humiliating death as a victim of injustice. He experienced physical agony, emotional abandonment, and spiritual darkness. He didn’t avoid suffering—he embraced it.
Why? The Bible says Jesus suffered for us. He took upon himself the consequences of the evil we’ve unleashed into the world—our sin, our violence, our rebellion—and bore it on the cross so that we could be forgiven, healed, and made new.
A God Who Cares
Tim Keller once said, “As humans, we may not understand why God allows suffering. But when we look at the crucifixion of Jesus, God in the flesh, there is one thing we can’t say. We can’t say God doesn’t care about suffering. No—he cares about it so much, he was willing to come and experience it himself, to show us he loves us.”
That changes everything. We may not always know why we suffer. But we do know who is with us in our suffering. And we know what kind of God he is. He is not distant. He is not indifferent. He is present, compassionate, and deeply involved.
Where to Go from Here
If you’re asking these questions—or hurting in a way that makes faith feel impossible—you’re not alone. Christianity doesn’t offer quick fixes or shallow answers. But it does offer something better: a Savior who suffers with us and redeems our pain.
