The Worst Thing to Say to Someone Who's Suffering

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A listener’s brother walked away from faith over one thing: he can’t reconcile a good God with the suffering he sees. In this episode, John, Mary Jo, and Blaine unpack why our instinct to answer with an argument is usually the wrong first move, and what to do instead. They dig into the difference between the intellectual question and the emotional one, why getting them mixed up shuts a conversation down, and what it looks like to be present with someone who is hurting before you ever get to the answers.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The reality is we live in a world governed by a good God who doesn't fix all the evil stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Do you need answers or do you need a hug? Because I'm actually good for both.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

When we go through suffering, we often become part of a club that we didn't ask for. Jesus is in that club too.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

So, MJ, we've got a question from Matt in San Diego, and he writes, My brother walked away from faith a few years ago. He's not angry about it. He's just done. And when I ask him why, he always comes back to the same thing: the suffering in the world. He says he can't reconcile a good God with everything that he sees. I don't know what to say to him, and I don't even know where to start.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

That is one of the biggest objections that people have to belief in God. So yeah, it's this is a really good question. Um, let's start with that the instinct would probably be to provide an argument or an answer. And that's that's almost never what we should do first when somebody has a question about pain and suffering or the evil in the world. Um rather, we should start with questions. And a good question to start with would be: are you dealing with something right now that has um caused you to think about this, um, about this issue? So I have found that for many people, this isn't a philosophical puzzle. Um, you know, they're not taking seminary courses on the problem of evil. Uh, it's a wound. It's a wound. When you ask a question like that, it sort of opens the door gently so that you're not assuming they're in pain, but you're also not assuming that they're just, you know, batting around an intellectual idea. Uh so and it it does more than that. It signals that you're actually interested in them and that you care about them. So again, if you want a place to start, think of a question that you can ask about, you know, what brought this up? Why are you thinking on this?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, yeah. That's that's always a helpful place to start, especially for most of us who wrestle with this ourselves. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but this is a hard question, and I've thought a lot about it, and it's maybe the hardest one out there. It's not like there is an easy answer.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, it's not a question that the Bible skirts. So the Bible itself has characters that are wrestling with why God are you allowing this? Why this pain and suffering? Um, why uh why are evil people seemingly succeeding in the world? So I think it's a question for all of us. But I I love Mary Jo, what you say about tapping into like what experiences that particular individual have, and how can we meet them there? I I can think of one example in particular where I had a this gathering, and in the gathering, I I was just asking people what questions they had about God or Christianity or the Bible, and and and one person brought up this question. Like, I just want to know where there's God when there's all this evil and suffering in the world. And my response was, this is my typical response, is I said, Are you are you asking that question philosophically? Like it's always just been one of those things that you know you've tried to figure out in your brain and you haven't been able to figure it out, or are you asking this question because there's something in your life, some pain and suffering that's been really tough? And and he immediately said, My wife died eight years ago. And ever since then, I've just wondered where's where's God. It was very personal, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah, yeah, that's I've had that experience too. Because sometimes I give talks on this out in public, and afterwards I had one lady that I noticed um was lingering at the back of the whole group that was asking me questions, and when everybody was gone, she came up to me. Uh, and in short, she basically said, You know, I've been questioning my faith ever since I lost my son to leukemia at six years old. I I was looking at her and she was starting to get more teary. And I said, Well, what what do you need? Do you need answers or do you need a hug? Because I'm actually good for both. And I she said, I think, I think I need both.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

When we want to go a little deeper, let's say somebody says, Okay, give me some of the answers, maybe after the hug part. So, how how do you begin to think through this this question? Where would you start?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah. So if you're gonna go thinking on this a little bit deeper, I like to break the problem of evil up uh generally into two categories of the intellectual question and the emotional question. And so the intellectual uh problem is asking, is the existence of evil logically compatible with the existence of a good God? Um, but the emotional question is asking more along the lines of I am in pain or I am suffering. And I need to know that God is not only real, but that he cares about my suffering. And if we mix up those two categories, it can be a situation where you're not really ministering to the person in front of you. You know, you kind of are have deaf ears to their pain if you launch in to the wrong, you know, to that intellectual argument when they're hurting.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

I think when people have something personal that they really I mean, there's a lot of there's pain and suffering in their life, is and they are asking the question, does God really care? Right. Um part of the way they're going to answer that question with a yes is because we care. Because Christ is working through us towards them and showing them love and compassion. So we're not gonna do it with these long apologetic arguments. We're gonna do it by saying, I am so sorry, I can't imagine anyone going through that. Tell me more about that. How have you dealt with that, right? If you if we begin to show that caring concern, then they can begin to believe in a God who would have that care and concern, right? So so uh I think it's super important, just as you said, oftentimes we start with these intellectual answers, and we've got to really uh find out whether there's something personal there and and minister to that well before we get to the intellectual thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Absolutely, yeah, definitely. Because I I most of the people I encounter, they don't just sit around and think about the problem of evil. That's right. What causes the question is an experience, right? Yeah. Yeah, so that's really good to point out. And and uh on that note, I mean, we can really answer well when we are what I call a living apologetic. And that's what you're touching on, is that when we actually represent the compassion of Christ and that unconditional love and the okayness to be present in a really hard situation with someone who is suffering, um, you know, just like Christ. Yes. So that that is important.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

So, Mary Joe, if somebody's wanting some of the intellectual answers to this question, where would you point them?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So many places. Uh, first, let's let me caveat real quickly. If you hear anybody today, like an influencer, a media influencer, say that we're not talking about the problem of evil, there are so many responses to the problem of evil over the last 2,000 years of Christian history. Like when I give a talk on this, I got like 30 up on the screen, and people are taking photos because they're like, oh my gosh, wow. So you've got things like soul building theodicy, you've got things like um best possible worlds theory, you've got there's just we can go on and on. Um, I tend to roam around a free will defense. And so that is that I believe that God, when he created us, he made us in his image, which was that we have uh real choice. And so our choice has real consequence. That makes it uh actual real choice, right? If it doesn't have any consequence, then what is he, what is the choice doing? So we have what's called agency. Now, um, that's a good gift from God. It reflects his own uh nature that he is uh he has agency. Okay, so what can we do with that? That's good. Well, man, we can love God. We can love other people with that, right? Those are good things. It's actually a really good gift to us because of those implications. However, we can also then choose to not do what is good. Um, we can choose to do something we call evil. And now we have this question of, okay, well, what do you mean when you say evil? And so uh where I land on this is that evil is not a thing and of itself. That evil is actually a privation or a corruption of the good thing that should be there. So when we're talking about evil, we're talking about it's it's the not good. Okay, that's an important part of this. Uh, so sometimes we choose to do that which is not good, and that's a consequence of having the ability to choose. Um so now the thing is we've just discovered that if we're gonna say something's evil, uh, and we're gonna say, I don't believe in God because there's evil in the world, well, we've created a problem. We need to know what's good in order to say there's evil, and that that's a huge issue, right? We have to know what we're saying is good. Um, and we don't just mean I think it's good in this time and place in history. We're we use language that uh shows that we actually believe in some kind of standard out there because we're using should and um that that was unjust or that we, you know, that wasn't fair. And so we we have this language, like we we keep thinking there's something, some kind of standard or some kind of good that is better than this. And I think that's because we're right. I think there is an objective standard of good, and that is found in God's nature. That's who God is. When Christians run around and say, God is good all the time, you know, you know that we are saying his nature is good and he's the standard by which we know what is good and what is evil. And when we choose to do good, it is really good. But we can also choose to do that which is evil, and there's a lot of pain and suffering that comes from as a consequence of evil, because evil is a destructive factor in our world.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

One of the really good stories that I like, um, and I'm sure you've heard it as well, MJ, is from Andrea Dilley. So Andrea grew up in Kenya and she was a missionary kid, and uh she would often go with her father, who was a doctor, to care for these uh young children, who she would go back with her father a couple days later and they would have died. So as a young teenager, she's like, you know, there's no God. I mean, look at all this suffering that's going on, people dying, all of this injustice. But later on in her life, she realized, but how can I call that unjust? So she said that what drove me out of the church is exactly what drove me back into the church. Yeah. Right? Like I was I was disappointed by the injustice and the suffering I saw, but the real I realized that the only way that I could call it unjust and be truly sort of upset about it is because there's a God who set a standard as to what's as what's right. And so I just think it's a great story of we need to have a God if we're gonna call things good and thus even call things evil as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

So in this whole conversation, a lot of times people just want to know not the intellectual stuff, but does God see me in what's going on in my life? Does he care about the things that are happening to me or to people that I love? How do we engage in that side, the emotional side of this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, and I think that's that's really what you're gonna encounter, right? That's the one. So um I think this is the question about whether or not God cares about me. I mean, this is why the book of lamentations exists in scripture, right? It's the Jeremiah crying out to God in the middle of devastating loss and devastating grief. And God, you know, has allowed that to be included in the Bible. It's raw, it's not prettied up. It is um raw and real. And it shows you that God is not uncomfortable with human sorrow, anger, confusion, or even our lament that we don't want it to be this way. Um, and then you see, one of the things I really like about uh the figure of Jesus. So moving uh to Jesus here, in John 11, when his friend Lazarus dies, uh Jesus is not this emotionally detached, weird demigod figure kind of thing. He's very human. And he weeps with Mary and Martha. He weeps. That's that shortest English phrase in the Bible, right? John 11, 35, Jesus wept. Uh so when I look at Christianity, I don't see a God who is detached from suffering or indifferent to it. We actually see it in the grander narrative of um creation, fall, and redemption, we see a God who enters into the suffering with us through Jesus Christ, um, responds in compassion, and then demonstrates unconditional love for us through his sacrifice on the cross.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Now, if somebody said, Okay, that's I'm being hypothetical, but that's great. Jesus did all that. I'm still dealing with this horrific thing that just happened to me in my life. That doesn't seem like it has much of an effect. How would we handle that kind of an objection or a question?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Okay, so what I would say to that is um, I hear you, and that is why Christians have the name of Little Christ, because we are supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus in your moment of need and suffering. So there is um that's what we are supposed to be doing, is as we learn about things like these defenses and why we're all suffering and going through pain and experiencing evil, that should have an impact on Christians to the point of when we see suffering in others that we want to do something about it, even if that's just being present with those who are suffering, but even beyond that in caring for those who are suffering.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

You know, when we go through suffering, we often become part of a club that we didn't ask for. We're now if we have cancer, we become part of the cancer club, right? If we go through if a if a child uh um is lost due to suicide, now we're now part of the club of parents who lost a child to suicide, right? We didn't sign up for those clubs, but we're now a member of that club. And what you find is is that people in that club are the ones who oftentimes you can relate with the best, right? Because they went through that suffering and pain with you. But Jesus, when he entered into the world, he he experienced incredible injustice, incredible pain, incredible suffering, incredible betrayal, right? So that means that Jesus is in that club too. So when we come with our pain, and we're a member of that club, like Jesus can meet us there. He's not an outsider who doesn't know about it. He's he's one that's a part of that club as well. So I think one of the ways that even in the midst of our pain and suffering, how can can Jesus speak in that to that today? It's that he's a member of the pain and suffering club, an injustice club, and we can lean on him. And I think this the second thing is is that all evil and injustice will not be righted in this life. It won't be. I mean, we we see terrible things, right, happening to say children around the world, and they and they're they're maybe enslaved and maybe they lose their life at 15. Where's the justice for them? It's it's not gonna happen in in this world. But the hope that Jesus gives us is that there will be a writing in the end, right? And that that all things will be made right and justice will be upheld. And so so so he can meet us where we're at now because he's a member of that club, but he also gives us this hope of a future where all things can be made right. And I think that's the beautiful thing of following Jesus today.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

And I've I love that last point because so often I think Christianity oversells the present reality of what it's like to follow Jesus. You know, he'll fix everything, he'll make you successful and whatever, all the stuff. Still waiting for a lot of that. Um but uh on a serious note, when we r read in the Bible, uh the story that we're in the middle of, and we are in the middle of it, it's not over yet. That's the the reality that you're presenting. The reality is, and it's one of the challenges of this question. The reality is we live in a world governed by a good God who doesn't fix all the evil stuff, who lets bad things happen, even to people who follow him and love him, and it doesn't always work out this side of eternity. But fortunately, there is a fix coming. What are some tips that that you'd like to leave the audience with?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, I wrote a few down. Perfect. So things to keep in mind um is to ask before you answer. I think when somebody asks a problem of evil question, we get a little tense because we, you know, are oh no, I have to respond to this, but really just ask them what they're going through. Ask a question that um shows it demonstrates the care, it demonstrates that love, um, humility that you don't know what's going on in their life. And so ask before you answer. And then another practical tip is that um knowing some of the responses to the problem of evil that have been given over the history of mankind uh does help free you up to be present in the moment and not be thinking, oh no, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say, right? So if they're saying, if they're pushing you and saying, well, beyond that, what are some answers? Having something, um, you don't even have to utilize those answers, just knowing that they're there and that you've dealt with them, it impacts you. And then it impacts how you uh are with others, how you can be present. And then um finally, uh some know that some things are more effective in conversation than others. You can say there are serious objections or responses to this objection. You can talk about how you've wrestled with it yourself. Uh, you can say that the cross means that God isn't indifferent to suffering, which John was talking about so well. Um, and then one of the most honest and effective things you can say to a person who may ask you something like, why is this happening or why did that happen to somebody is I don't know why that happened.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Because honestly, when we're talking about individual circumstances, we don't know what God's purposes are in that. We can draw from scripture or from you know philosophical thinking, like here's some general reasons why God might allow this in that circumstance, but we don't really know why. Why did a tornado hit that town and not the other town? We don't know the answer to that. So um, even if we can tie somehow um man's sinful nature to um you know horrific natural events, that that doesn't answer the question of why that town why that happened. So we we don't know we when we shouldn't pretend to know why someone is going through the particular pain and suffering that they're going through.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

So Mary Jo, last question. We're going out, we've got the week ahead of us, we've learned some good things on this podcast. Uh if somebody gets this question in a conversation, what's just one thing you'd want them to try?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Uh yeah, I would try asking the other person that question. And then uh listen, listen intently and see what they're actually telling you about what's going on. So instead of saying, oh, this week I'm gonna try out, you know, free will defense or soul building theodicy or something like that, instead, really try to pay attention to that person's needs.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Thanks for listening to the Reach Podcast. If you've got a question that you'd like to submit, go do that on reachothers.org slash podcast. And that whole website, reachothers.org, was developed by Search Ministries, which is our parent organization. And Search has been doing relational evangelism in the United States for almost 50 years, and we want to give the best of what we've learned away to you, and that's what we've done on reachothers.org. Hope you enjoy it. Come back and listen to the next episode.