“Why is there suffering in the world ?”

Another soul answered...

When we look at our world, other people and ourselves, we see two conflicting realities at work. There is beauty on the one hand and brokenness on the other. We see beauty because when God created the world, He created the perfect design. God loves this world, loves His creation, and, in fact, He created a perfect paradise where we could enjoy and have a relationship with Him forever. We still see that beauty in the laugh of a baby, a sunrise or sunset, the love of another person, art, architecture, food and drink. There is such beauty in this world. BUT, we also see so much brokenness. The problem came when the very first humans decided they wanted to go their own way, depart from God's design. They thought to themselves "I want to be like God". So, they committed the first sin and brought the full consequences and curses of sin and death into our world and into our lives. Why? God love us to much to force us to love Him. If we decide to separate ourselves from Him then that is our choice. The Bible says, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." and that God and His glory cannot tolerate sin and so we were separated. Because of sin, we see brokenness in our world, brokenness in other people and brokenness in us. Brokenness in our world can be seen in death, disease, destruction and decay. It's all around us. Brokenness in people feels like shame, regret, guilt and emptiness. It leads to feeling used or feeling lonely. But we want out of our brokenness. We want change. We try to fix things on our own so that we can find fulfillment. We seek fulfillment in so many different ways: Relationships, one after another. Success - financial success, business success, athletic success or academic success - something to feel like we win. Or, we try to numb the pain of our brokenness with distractions of entertainment, pleasure, comfort, fun, drugs and alcohol. It's just a matter of time before we realize none of these things solve the problem! These things are never enough. Not enough to heal our hearts or remove our guilt. Instead, like bungee cords, our attempts to get out snap us back into greater brokenness. But God loving us did not want to us to be separated from Him forever. To be stuck in this brokenness. So, he came in the person of Jesus! The Bible has a word for "good news" and that word is "Gospel." And, the Gospel is the good news story of how God put on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He came to earth as a man. To suffer along with us. He lived a sinless perfect life. He died on the cross for the sins of the world. By dying on the cross, Jesus took our guilt and the sins of the world upon himself. He became our substitute. He paid the price of God's wrath, so we could be made right before a Holy God. Jesus was then raised from the dead to prove He had power over sin and death. God proved that Jesus could do everything for us that He said He could do. He can forgive us of our sins, remove our guilt, and he can heal the broken places in our lives. He can save us. We can't save ourselves, we can't fix ourselves, we can't heal ourselves. But here's the good news: God came to heal the broken places in our lives. But to do that, we have to respond to him. Put our faith in him. Submit to him. Acts 2:36-38 is the story of the first people responding to the Gospel and being saved. The text says that we must first BELIEVE that Jesus is Lord and Christ. We believe Jesus is Lord. Lord means God. He is your King. He is your Master. He is Lord! He must be King, Lord of your life, to be saved. You must believe He is Christ, the promised one. You must believe He is the Messiah who died on a cross, was buried in a grave and rose from the dead. We must believe Jesus is alive and that He is who He says He is. Belief is not just believing in something because I say or someone else says so, the evidence of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is what points to these events being true. Seek out this evidence and make the conclusion for yourself. So we REPENT. Repent means to change our mind and to change our direction. It is doing a complete 180 in mind and action where I no longer live for myself, but I live for Jesus. I reverse course. Instead of running away from the Lord into brokenness, I'm now running toward Him. We will be BAPTIZED. Acts 2 says we believe, repent and are baptized for the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we believe, repent and are baptized, we are choosing to make Jesus the King of our lives. When we, with complete faith and trust in Jesus, go under water, we are declaring Christ's Lordship. It's a moment of surrender where we are putting our faith in Jesus. Romans 6 says when we are baptized we are being united with Christ in His death and resurrection, and just as Jesus was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. When you are in Christ, you are made into a new creation! The old has gone and the new has come. God reconciles us to Himself. God reconciles us to one another. God brings peace, forgiveness, fulfillment into our lives to make us whole again. He gives us His Holy Spirit to empower us to live a new life, so we can be restored to God's perfect design. Then, He gives us that message of reconciliation so that we can go back out into a broken world. We go not as sinners running away from God, but as ambassadors for His kingdom to help others who are living in brokenness come to know Jesus, so He can forgive them and heal them also. That is why I'm sharing this with you today. If you read this far thank you. There was a time when I recognized the wrong that I, and the world, has done and I wanted to be made new. So I gave over my "I want to be God of my life" to "You, Jesus, are God of my life". Where are you? Where do you want to be? What’s stopping (keeping you) from doing it? Has there been a time in your life when you made Jesus your Lord and Savior, so He could bring you out of brokenness into His design for your life? If not, are you ready now? Are you ready to confess that you believe Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God and that you want to receive Him as your Lord and Savior, repenting of your sins and being baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit? If not, is there anything preventing you from doing so? If you want to learn more: https://www.gotquestions.org/