We all know that God is good. And we know that He exercises sovereign and complete control over everything. But if He is good and in control, why does He allow us to suffer?Does He cause our suffering or want us to suffer? Sometimes, it certainly feels this way. But the Bible explains that no evil has its origin in God (Psalm 92:15). He does not cause our suffering, but He brings good from it and allows us to benefit from it.
God’s Original Design
God never hid the fact that disobedience would result in suffering. Rather, He warned us of the consequences of sin in Genesis 2:16-17:
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”
When Adam and Eve disregarded this warning and sinned, they invited evil into the world. As a result, sin corrupted every aspect of creation around them. Suffering came into the picture, and according to Romans 5:12, it spread to all humanity:
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Some people suffer as a consequence of their own sin or the sin of someone else. Some people suffer because Satan is personally attacking them in an effort to drive them from God. And some people suffer simply because they live in a fallen world. God didn’t design suffering, He doesn’t cause suffering, and He doesn’t want suffering.
God’s Response to Suffering
But that does not mean that God leaves us to deal with our suffering on our own. Hebrews 4:15 explains that our suffering causes God to feel pain as well:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
The word “sympathize” comes from the Greek wordsumpatheō. This Greek word is really a combination of two words that mean “with” and “suffer.” In other words, this verse says that God suffers with us when we suffer. It is a felt solidarity, an echo of the same pain. Indeed, when we suffer, God is co-suffering with us!
nd as incredible as that is, God does not stop there. He not only endures our suffering with us, but He also makes incredible promises to get us through our suffering. In Isaiah 43:2, God directs our attention to His faithfulness in the past. Moses and Joshua crossed the Red Sea and the Jordan River on dry land when God parted the waters for them. And Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego walked through the flames and made it through the fiery furnace alive. In the same way, God promises to be with us in our trials.
He promises to guard us, saying that nothing in the world will ever separate us from Christ’s love (Romans 8:35). He grants us comfort in (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) and deliverance from (Psalm 34:19) all of our afflictions. He promises us restoration, confirmation, and strength according to His grace (1 Peter 5:10). And He assures us that He will one day rid us of all of our suffering forever (Revelation 21:4).
The Biblical Benefits of Suffering
It was not a part of God’s original design for us to go through any kind of suffering. But God has a way of turning even the worst of situations into good. He has given us the opportunity to use our suffering to deepen our relationship with Him and to grow in our faith. While it is true that suffering entered into the world as a result of sin, the Bible doesn’t portray suffering as necessarily evil in and of itself.
In fact, though God doesn’t want us to suffer, His Word describes suffering as beneficial to us. It seems counterintuitive to think that something so undesirable as suffering could benefit us. Our minds struggle to comprehend how afflictions that don’t even have their origin in God could ever result in our good. But that is the power of our God. He works all things together for the good of His people and for His glory (Romans 8:28).
The first benefit that suffering brings according to the Bible is maturity in the faith. James 1:2-4 explains that suffering produces patient and active endurance and leads to us being perfect and complete: 
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Trials reveal the true nature of our faith. True faith does not collapse under the pressure of suffering (1 Peter 1:6-7). But afflictions help us grow firm in our faith by showing us and those around us that we truly believe what we say we believe. Though no one desires affliction, it is through these hard times that we often feel closest to God. He strengthens and sustains us, and we learn that everything we need is in Him.
Enduring and persevering through trials results in the end goal of perfect maturity. It is a step forward in our sanctification process that points to our coming glorification. Romans 5:3-4 even goes so far as to call suffering a cause for rejoicing:
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
It is easy to believe that God is good when life is going our way. But when trials come, we are forced to choose between the truths of Scripture and our felt realities. And as God enables us to continue in a faith that seems to run in direct opposition to our feelings, we become people who persevere. This endurance leads to us having proven character before God. 
We resolve to believe in God no matter what. And this resolve gives us immense hope. Because when we learn that the circumstances of this world do not define or determine the goodness of God, we attain surety of heaven. We have felt His sustaining hand. We have trusted in His sovereign plan. And we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has granted us an eternal salvation that cannot be tainted, tarnished, or taken away by the suffering we face in this world.