This question has been asked by all of us sooner or later for when tragedy strikes, we can easily wonder about God's character or capabilities. Either He is less than good or insufficient in power is the potential conclusion that can lead a person to reject God. "If you really loved me, you would not have let that happen" is what we can be tempted to think.

The truth is that all we desire (perfection, security, protection and happiness) will be provided by God. The issue is timing. We want heaven now but God has provided for heaven later. There is a saying "delay is not denial". Such is the case with God. He is the one who placed the desire for perfection in our hearts and He is the one who will someday "make all things new". Until then, we live in imperfection which means that there will be suffering.

One of the major reasons for the imperfections in this world is "free will". God could have made a "Stepford" type world where everybody and everything was incapable of doing anything wrong. But, we would not like to be robots.

Thankfully, God made us free to choose. This freedom is necessary because God wants people to choose to love Him. We see this gift of choice in marriage. We want to be in a mutual loving relationship with someone we choose and who chooses us. The same is true with God. He loves us and has chosen to die for us that we might choose Him and have a personal relationship with Him. Love without choice ceases to be love.

Unfortunately, free will opens the door for bad choices too and suffering is usually the result. This pain can be physical, emotional, relational, financial or spiritual. God warned the first human beings He created not to use their free will to reject His authority. But, they rebelled against God and the consequence was a fallen world, everything in creation came under a curse. As a result, we see suffering in every part of life through foolish or evil choices. God is allowing all of this to continue on his time clock for good reasons that we often cannot understand. Someday, pain will end and we will see in heaven that God was good and just in everything. Actually, we are in the middle of God's plan for redemption at this time in history. Redemption means "to restore to original condition". The paradise that Adam and Eve forfeited will be restored to last forever.

Finally, we need to accept randomness as part of life. Sometimes, things go bad without any explanations. It's not because of anything we have done wrong or that others have done wrong. Sometimes, we suffer simply because we live in a world that has no guarantees. There is inherent risk in every part of life. We take a risk simply by going out the front door and driving our car. God has promised a world without any suffering but it is a future reality that requires our faith.