Religion & Theology Speech Presentation: Why Does God Allow Suffering?

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Why Does God Allow Suffering?
Pain and suffering have always been a part of man’s life since time immemorial with many questioning why innocent people have to endure so much pain in life. The Old Testament is full of examples of how innocent people such as Job endured suffering and the same is true even in the present world where we have witnessed world wars, genocides, massacres and emergence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer that have had some devastating effects on people. Through these events, many loved ones have been lost while those who remain behind have to live with the painful memories forever. Interestingly, in all these, God often seems to be silent, causing many Christians and non-Christians alike to question the necessity of allowing this suffering. Based on this therefore, this paper seeks to answer the above question using a number of Biblical scriptures that shed light on the issue.
God allows suffering because through it, our faith is tested, which teaches us to persevere and eventually the perseverance leads to spiritual maturity and completeness. In James chapter 1:2-4, the scripture says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. This scripture starts by encouraging Christians to be joyful in the face of trials because pain and suffering helps us to persevere. From this it is clear that through trials and suffering, we learn the value of endurance, which confirms our faith in God. This is because when most people suffer, they tend to depend solely on God and His word and through this they learn endurance. In verse 3, this perseverance brings about maturity and enables us to be complete. Maturity and completeness in this case means that we can become more like Jesus Christ who is considered spiritually mature throughout the Bible. We become complete in such a way that we do not lack anything that a Christian needs to survive in this world. Finally, the above scripture also considers the attainment of maturity as being more valuable than the lack of pain and suffering. Therefore, it is evident that suffering is an important and necessary part of every person’s life and it should be received with joy because of the benefits that come after enduring it to the end without interfering with the process.
Another reason for suffering is that after persevering the trials, it offers the Christians a sure path to building godly character and hope. According to Romans chapter 5: 3-5, we have to embrace our suffering with great joy because “suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.” This therefore means that God allows suffering because through it, He enables us to develop the proven character that He wishes us to have. Ideally, this kind of character is only achieved through testing, which is done by pain and suffering. From this, Christians can view suffering as God’s way of reshaping and molding us to be exactly the way He intended us to be. Passing through this suffering can be co...