Why do we suffer?

Why do we suffer?

One of the main questions everyone asks when it comes to religion is why do good people suffer. No one ever wants to believe that people suffer for the good of others, but in my opinion that’s exactly how it should be looked at. George Weigal states that, “many find it easier to reconcile the unavoidable realities of suffering with an accidental and purposeless universe than to accept the traditional biblical answer to the problem” (Weigal 112). Why is it that people would rather believe that bad things happen by coincidence instead of accepting the reasons that we have been taught for centuries?

When God created Adam and Eve he gave them freedom to exist without suffering; however, when they decided to betray him he punished them by allowing them to suffer instead of protecting them from it. We suffer because of the decisions that Adam and Eve made and the Bible makes it’s quite clear that we do, yet for whatever reason people still seem to overlook that. I often wonder why people ignore the Bible and still think that there are no reasons for why people suffer. We are baptized to wash away original sin and we live in a “world in which things can, and do go wrong” (Weigal 113), so then why don’t we accept that we suffer because we were born with the original sin?

As Christians we believe that Jesus died to save us. We believe that after he died the gates of heaven reopened. We believe he suffered for us, so doesn’t it make sense that we suffer for the good of others? I believe it does. We suffer for each other just as Jesus suffered for us all. I know no one wants to believe that someone dies or suffers for us, but how else would we learn of new diseases or illnesses and learn ways to prevent it from being an epidemic? We are here to save each other just as Jesus saved all of us.

Why do good people suffer? Why do people suffer at all? No one really has the answers to those questions. There are things in life that can’t be explained. All that can really be explained is that things happen whether it is good or bad. Jesus saved us by suffering, so even though we don’t have the answers to why we suffer, I choose to believe that we suffer to save each other which is exactly what Jesus would do.