Bible Gateway Blog

If God loves us, why is life sometimes so hard? It’s a simple question, but one that has challenged Christians since the earliest days of the church. Why would a God who wants the best for us allow us to undergo suffering and pain?

Hebrews 12 doesn’t answer every question you might have about suffering and the “problem of evil,” but it offers some important insight. As is often the case in Scripture, we’re challenged us re-think our assumptions—in this case, the assumption that there’s no purpose behind our suffering:

Hebrews 12:1-13

We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. Think about Jesus’ example. He held on while wicked people were doing evil things to him. So do not get tired and stop trying. You are struggling against sin, but your struggles have not yet caused you to be killed. You have forgotten the encouraging words that call you his children:

“My child, don’t think the Lord’s discipline is worth nothing,
and don’t stop trying when he corrects you.
The Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as his child.” — Proverbs 3:11–12

So hold on through your sufferings, because they are like a father’s discipline. God is treating you as children. All children are disciplined by their fathers. If you are never disciplined (and every child must be disciplined), you are not true children. We have all had fathers here on earth who disciplined us, and we respected them. So it is even more important that we accept discipline from the Father of our spirits so we will have life. Our fathers on earth disciplined us for a short time in the way they thought was best. But God disciplines us to help us, so we can become holy as he is. We do not enjoy being disciplined. It is painful at the time, but later, after we have learned from it, we have peace, because we start living in the right way.

You have become weak, so make yourselves strong again. Keep on the right path, so the weak will not stumble but rather be strengthened. — Hebrews 12:1-13 (NCV)

Questions to Consider

1. Does perceiving suffering as discipline, rather than oppression, make a practical difference in the way you relate to it? How so?
2. When you experience this “divine discipline,” do you think it’s appropriate to pray for relief from it? Why or why not?
3. Looking back at a specific point of suffering in your life, can you see how it’s strengthened you? Are you grateful for the experience of discipline, or resentful?

Have you ever seen firsthand the damage that internal strife can cause to a church? It’s not pretty. Churches have been torn apart when false doctrine, immoral behavior, and selfishness are given a foothold in the congregation.

This is not a new phenomenon—the early Christian church was just as threatened by these dangers are we are today. The geographically scattered ancient church was particularly at risk from false and divisive teachings. So what counsel does the New Testament offer to a church facing these threats?

The very short New Testament book of Jude is one place we find some practical advice.

Jude 1

Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

When these people eat with you in your fellowship meals commemorating the Lord’s love, they are like dangerous reefs that can shipwreck you. They are like shameless shepherds who care only for themselves. They are like clouds blowing over the land without giving any rain. They are like trees in autumn that are doubly dead, for they bear no fruit and have been pulled up by the roots. They are like wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars, doomed forever to blackest darkness….

These people are grumblers and complainers, living only to satisfy their desires. They brag loudly about themselves, and they flatter others to get what they want.

But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ said. They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.

But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. — Jude 1 (NLT)

Questions to Ponder

1. Have you seen firsthand the damage that “grumblers and complainers” cause to a church? Have you ever been guilty of causing trouble in this way?
2. According to this passage, how can you recognize “ungodly people” in the church? What distinguishes this sort of person from somebody who has simply fallen into temporary error?
3. What does it mean to “show mercy to those whose faith is wavering”? Have you ever experienced this mercy?
4. What concrete responses does this passage tell you to take if your church is in danger from this type of threat?

My book club is currently reading Søren Kirkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, which is an extended meditation on Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. It’s a surprising and troubling account that demands further reflection. Beyond its value as a fascinating story about a famous Biblical hero, it has much to say about faith, humanity, and our relationship to God.

Genesis 22:1-19

After these things God tested Abraham’s faith. God said to him, “Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.”

Then God said, “Take your only son, Isaac, the son you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Kill him there and offer him as a whole burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took Isaac and two servants with him. After he cut the wood for the sacrifice, they went to the place God had told them to go. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. My son and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the sacrifice and gave it to his son to carry, but he himself took the knife and the fire. So he and his son went on together.

Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!”

Abraham answered, “Yes, my son.”

Isaac said, “We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb we will burn as a sacrifice?”

Abraham answered, “God will give us the lamb for the sacrifice, my son.”

So Abraham and his son went on together and came to the place God had told him about. Abraham built an altar there. He laid the wood on it and then tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the wood on the altar. Then Abraham took his knife and was about to kill his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!”

Abraham answered, “Yes.”

The angel said, “Don’t kill your son or hurt him in any way. Now I can see that you trust God and that you have not kept your son, your only son, from me.”

Then Abraham looked up and saw a male sheep caught in a bush by its horns. So Abraham went and took the sheep and killed it. He offered it as a whole burnt offering to God, and his son was saved. So Abraham named that place The Lord Provides. Even today people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “The Lord says, ‘Because you did not keep back your son, your only son, from me, I make you this promise by my own name: I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. They will be as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, and they will capture the cities of their enemies. Through your descendants all the nations on the earth will be blessed, because you obeyed me.’ ”

Then Abraham returned to his servants. They all traveled back to Beersheba, and Abraham stayed there. — Genesis 22:1-19 (NCV)

Questions to Ponder

1. In Fear and Trembling, Kirkegaard writes about the difference between how we experience this story and how Abraham experienced it:

“One mounts a winged horse, the same instant one is at Mount Moriah, the same instant one sees the ram: one forgets that Abraham rode only upon an ass, which walks slowly along the road, that he had a journey of three days, that he needed some time to cleave the wood, to bind Isaac, and to sharpen the knife.”

Imagine yourself in the shoes of Abraham and Isaac, thinking about what was to come with each step of their long journey. How do you think you might have reacted to God’s command?

2. If Abraham had listed what was most important to him in his life, Isaac would have been at the very top. What’s at the top of your list? Would you be willing to completely give it up to God?

3. Have you seen the pattern of this story play out in your own life? Have you ever been called to give something up, only to have God give it back to you in a surprising way?