In the world today, you hear all kinds of stories on the news and radio. You hear of shootings, drunk driving accidents, (to be blunt) rape, abuse, and more. There is so much pain in the world, in our lives. People get hurt all the time. People often wonder if there's truly a God because of this. A lot of times, people argue this. Why would a loving God allow His people to suffer?

See, God doesn't want us to suffer. He wants us to be happy. But people bring in the misconception that God Himself brings pain on people. That's untrue.

God loves us. He loves us so much that it's beyond our understanding. So why on earth would He want us to suffer and be in pain? I'll give you a hint.

He doesn't.

Ah yes. God doesn't want us to suffer. But then this question arises; why do we then?

Have you ever noticed, most forms of physical suffering is brought on by other people? Assault, abuse, murders, and more. They're all brought on by humans, not God.

Then people say again, Why does God let others hurt me/someone else then?

You see, as God's creations, He gave us free will. As humans, we have been given the right to do as we please. Only when people abuse that privilege do people truly get hurt.

Adam and Eve were created perfect. God even gave them free will, with only one command. Since they disobeyed that command, they caused sin to be born. They had the free will and they abused the privilege they had. See how much hurt came out of that? All the sin that's in the world today is caused by our ignorance of our free will. We ignore it and abuse the privilege. That's when we tend to hurt others.

Then people say, Well, why doesn't God just stop them from doing it?

Think about that for a minute. If God just stopped that, what would have to happen? God would have to take away our free will. He doesn't want to do that. Why would He have given us free will in the first place if He didn't want us to have it?

God gave us free will to be able to think independently as his creatures. He wanted us to be free thinking, not just some robots that did what He said all the time. I'm very thankful for my free will. But, unfortunately, free will came with a price, one a lot are not willing to pay. It's a sad thing to think about, how people can intentionally hurt others because of our free will, but it's a very unfortunate fact of life. We're all sinners and we all do it, sometimes. That's why I believe my Salvation and repentance is very important.

Another thing that people think about is Well, what about cancer and things like that?

Obviously, cancer is not caused by human beings (unless you count it when it's possibly genetic, but you know what I mean…). So why would God allow cancer to happen.

I had a case of cancer in my family, so I know what it feels like to have that in your life. I would find myself constantly wondering why God would let that happen. Eventually, my relative passed away from the disease. And then I further wondered why.

To be honest, I don't really know why God would let people have cancer. Cancer is caused when cells mutate, unregulated cell growth. Sometimes I think that these things may have been necessary to the human race for one reason or another. I really don't know, but I do know God has His reasons for everything, some known and some unknown. Maybe we could just classify it as unknown.

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In conclusion, I don't see pain in our lives as a way God punishes us. I see it more as a way that He makes us stronger. But despite all the pain we face, no matter what it is, God still does, always has, and always will love us and care about us unconditionally.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world did not know us is that it did not know Him." -1 John 3:1