If God is loving and just, why does He allow suffering? In this episode, we explore the tension between pain and God’s goodness, starting from the very beginning Genesis 1-3. Love cannot exist without freedom, and with freedom comes the potential for sin and its consequences. But even in suffering, God is compassionate, using it to draw us near. We break down why God allowing suffering doesn’t contradict His nature and how trusting Him means releasing our need to understand everything. From generational curses to Jesus own suffering on the cross, we will uncover how God’s response to pain has always been mercy. Let’s shift our perspective and embrace a deeper trust in His plan.Thanks for watching this episode! I would love to connect with you guys! I am so blessed for every one of your faces!Instagram: @savednotsoftpodcastPersonal Instagram: @emymooreeTiktok: @savednotsoftpodcastShop the merchandise!https://savednotsoftshop.comI GAVE MY LIFE TO JESUS! :https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3SxFDFmGgk-TBNA-8rtWdDJqi5JWw6_jyAzBiyGlwON96nw/viewform?usp=sf_linkNeeding Prayer?:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdnDYvYSLpLJhHc3ZVPUX3XripoQEermFjcPN2cB5UWg19Hg/viewformDo you want to tithe towards my ministry? DONATE HERE!https://cash.app/$savednotsoftpodcastFeeling led to donate towards our wedding? Click the link below! No pressure, we value prayers above all :)https://www.zola.com/wedding/emyandmalikSupport the show
Chapter 1: Why does a good God allow suffering?
Hello, hello everyone and welcome back to Saved Not Soft. What's going on everybody? Hope you guys have had a blessed week so far. Hey, I'm ready. Today I'm feeling kind of like... chill, very vibey, but also very excited because I know God is just going to speak through this episode.
And I am very excited for this episode about talking about why a good God allows suffering because I tackled this topic a few months ago when a girl tagged me on a post saying, basically she was just saying, you know, I would be a sold out Christian if I just knew why God would allow suffering if he's so good. And I was like,
And I kind of tackled that conversation and I wanted to bring that into a podcast episode form today. So there's one room to talk about it and two for us to like really be invited into the presence of God and experience his goodness and not just our perception of what we think good is, but actually embrace Jesus for who he says he is. So, if you do not know me, my name is Emi Moore.
I'm the host of Save Not Soft. Also, I just feel like saying this. One of my best friends, Imani, she met somebody who had like a Save Not Soft t-shirt. And she was like, oh my gosh, you watch my bestie Emi. And she's like, oh my gosh, I love her, all this stuff. And she took a video of her and she was like, hey Emi, I love Save Not Soft.
And I feel like I realize I don't do this as much, but I guess I do. But it's okay. I don't even know where this came from. But anyways, my name's Emmy Moore. This is the podcast Save Not Soft. What is Save Not Soft? Save Not Soft is a catered podcast to let you know that you are heard, seen, and loved by God. You are adored by God. God loves you. He has compassion upon you.
And it's just, this podcast is supposed to be used as a tool to help you navigate the Christian lifestyle. This podcast isn't a replacement for God's word or a replacement for God's presence. Rather, it's just an opportunity for you to experience the presence of God through learning tools in scripture and prayer and fasting and community and et cetera. Amen.
So I'm very blessed and happy that you guys are here and I hope you learn something very new today. That's my prayer for y'all. So let's pray. Let's set the atmosphere and let's allow God to do exactly what we want him to do, which is show up and be good, which he already is. Amen. So let's close our eyes to your heavenly father. Thank you, Jesus, God. Thank you for this day.
Thank you for fresh breath in our lungs, God. We don't take our breath for granted. We don't take our lives for granted, God. We are grateful for your presence. We are thankful that you have called us and chosen us, God. We accept you calling us out by name, Father. And God, I just ask that through this episode, Father, that you just help us navigate your sovereignty and your goodness, God.
God, I just put to death all expectation of what we think good is in our version of good, in our version of sovereignty, God. God, we open our eyes, our minds, our hearts, our ears, our hands open to receive your goodness for what it truly is and not just a fabricated version manipulated and transcribed by us, God. God, we give you the pen to be the author of our ministry.
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Chapter 2: What does the Bible say about suffering?
And what does Adam and Eve do? It says that their eyes were then open and they saw themselves and became ashamed. They saw that they were naked. And it's funny because they was naked the whole entire time. But the moment that sin has entered the world, it took their eyes off of God and it finally put their eyes upon themselves.
And the condition that they were always in, they were now made aware of because sin had now given them a different lens. And so when sin came into the world, it addressed shame itself. in fear. And because of that, Adam and Eve then hid from God and he's walking in the cool of day and he's looking for Adam and Eve and he's saying, where are they?
And they're hiding behind the bushes, trying to make fig leaves of clothes and garments for themselves. And God is asking where his creation is because he wants to spend time with them and he sees that they are hiding. And so whenever he does find Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve then tell God that they were afraid of God because of what they had done, so they hid.
And so then from that, God declares a consequence, not because he has hatred for them or because he had some sort of malice or wrath towards them, but because God had to release a judgment in response to sin. And so that consequence was given, and then that's when we see God knitting wool for Adam and Eve, even in the midst of their sin.
And so whenever sin imparted into the world, that then opened up a whole entire door for people to rebel and come against the things of God. And so the question as to why does a God who was good allow suffering also kind of stems from the question of why would God allow sin to happen in the first place? Because suffering happens because sin happens.
But sin happens because God took a risk by giving us free will so he could experience true compassion with his creation. And so when we see Adam and Eve in the garden, First, Adam and Eve were created with the intention to be in perfect harmony with God, but yet it didn't happen because they were sinful and they fell into their own desires and they believed the serpent.
And so the question is, why did that happen in the first place? Why did God put the snake there? And why did they have the opportunity and the choice to not choose God? And we first have to understand why God created mankind in the first place. And it's because of one thing, one thing only, because of compassion. Because God wanted to experience a legitimate relationship with his creation.
And in order to experience love, love cannot exist outside of the parameters of freedom. And so what that means is that when love comes into play, there also has to be a choice. So love is like a two-step process or it's a two-step definition, I would say. So love requires two things. Love is a feeling, which is compassion and empathy and love and excitement. Love carries an attribute that's
That's embedded into a feeling. But then the other side of love is also an action which is accompanied by choice. So this is why you see married couples who have been married for years and years and years and years. You ask them, you know, what has kept you married for so long?
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Chapter 3: How does free will relate to suffering?
It never claims this will do this. This will heal you from this. It's like this has the ability to do this or hypothetically or this possibly. Like there's never certain language even in science because I think there's people who stray away from God and they're like, oh, well, then I'm going to involve myself into science and all these things that are more certain.
But it's like they don't even know as much. Right. Which is why their language in scientific language is super like what ifs and hypotheticals and predictions. And some of those things are effective and could be true, but none of it is ever 100% certain, right? And so I'm not saying that they're not effective. I'm not saying that science is a hoax. I think science is great.
I just think that if you don't think, you know... If you think science is going to give you all power and all knowing of everything, I'm going to be the first to tell you that you're absolutely wrong because even the smartest of the smartest people who have ever existed here on planet earth, they did not know everything and they were never fully certain of anything.
And so a part of you receiving the peace of God is actually loosening and surrendering a part of your understanding to him and And noticing that you're not going to know it all and that you're not going to have it all figured out. And there's a piece in that when you realize that you're not responsible for that. God's responsible for it.
You are just responsible for doing what he has called you to do, to be loved and cared for by him, right? And so... The Bible says in Isaiah 55, it says, my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. So like the way that God operates is so far out of our understanding that like we can't tangibly reach it.
We can as much as we can through scripture and things that he has given onto us on the earth and what he reveals to us in the spirit. But more so like in a realistic sense, even if you were the smartest theologian, you will not understand all the mysteries about God until you see him face to face, right?
And it's more so perspective and seeing that things are always different from a different angle, right? And so let's go back to the overall... This all bleeds into each other, but if God is a good God, then why is there suffering? Because I understand that there's people who...
are going through really awful circumstances whether if is you or your family or someone you really love about they're dealing with a sickness or a disease and you're like well this person has cancer because I sinned that one time like you're telling me that this person deserved cancer and it's like nope that's not what I'm arguing at all I'm actually not arguing that any of us like I
I don't believe like God looks at us and he's like, you deserve cancer. That's not what I'm advocating. My point of what I'm saying is that because sin entered into the world, it fell onto those who were wicked and also those who are good.
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Chapter 4: What role does sin play in suffering?
you're still going to encounter suffering because Romans eight says that those who want to share the glory of God will also share his sufferings because we are heirs of Christ. And that's here on earth. Like we're enduring a temporary suffering in order to inherit eternal glory with God. And it's because God has to restore everything that the earth has swallowed up because of sin.
And that's why we literally have to die because God wants to perfect us and make us whole because And take us to a land of perfection, not have us live as a stain on a world full of sin. And so I want to talk about maybe, I guess, well, I'll talk about this first. Because even though we are sinful and even though there is sin in the world and there is sickness and there is disease, right?
That is no longer your portion whenever you are in Christ. So if you're inflicted by the sins of the world or like disease and like all of these things, like you have the opportunity to step out of them by how much belief and faith you exercise in God. So what is John 3, 16 says?
It says for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son for nobody to perish, but for us to have eternal life. So the goal of God is not for us to perish, but for us to have eternal life in him. And because God loved us so much, even though we were the people who committed sin in our life. bad each and every single day. God still gave even when he didn't have to.
And so Jesus was sent by God to pay the debt that we could have never paid because here's the thing. Like even after Adam and Eve committed sin, God gave humanity time after time after time to come back to him and live in perfection, but they weren't doing it and they weren't being obedient and they weren't doing the things of God. And so, um,
He told them to, you know, sacrifice these animals and do all these things and they were still being disobedient. So what did God do? He sent the ultimate sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice, which is Jesus Christ.
And through that perfect sacrifice, he redeemed humanity because Jesus literally took, took on the sins of the whole entire world, like the entirety of the world, just for you to have eternal life with God, right? Get that. All of sins of mankind, all the way back to Adam and Eve and beyond, Jesus endured that in order for you to have an eternal relationship with God.
And the only thing you have to do is just accept Jesus Christ as Lord and to pick up your cross and follow him. That's it. It's repentance. It's getting up and it's following the things of God. And we have to understand that God is so compassionate that while we were dead in sin, he still died for us.
Even when you committed the worst sin possible, you can think of the worst thing of your entire head. God will still die for you even at your lowest. Even while you were doing the worst of the worst, God died. God sent his one and only son just for you. For that, like Jesus died for that to redeem you through that very thing. And it's embracing that, right?
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Chapter 5: How can suffering lead to compassion?
And also the reason as to why we might be dealing with things, even though if it was inflicted solely by us, it could have been because of our parents, our parents, parents, et cetera.
And what I want to say is that whether if sin that you're dealing with and suffering that you're dealing with, because I empathize with you children of God, I don't want to just like bypass this as if people aren't really struggling and people aren't having a hard time.
Because I know people are, and I know there's people who are listening to this and have a hard time seeing God as good or seeing their situation as fruitful. And I just want to encourage you that what has happened to you and what's going on right now is not your fault, but it is your responsibility. It's your responsibility to finally choose good.
It is your responsibility to make the decision if you want to choose Christ, if you're going to choose sin and a life apart from God. And I want to prompt this last thing because I know why we suffer. We suffer because we're bad. We suffer because we mess up. We suffer because we're sinful, right? And so I would just like to prompt this question because we always prompt the question.
We always prompt the question of if God is so good, then why is there suffering? Why do we have to suffering? I have the answer to that. It's because we're sinful, we're bad, and we mess up. So, okay, that makes sense as to why we suffer is because we mess up and we're sinful and we've been in opposition to God.
But here's a question that I would like to form that I feel like we've never asked If god is so good and so perfect Then why did he choose to suffer? because God is fully miraculous. God is fully powerful. He's fully compassionate. He's fully good and he's fully perfect So if god is all of those things and it claims to be true Then why did he choose? to suffer
And I believe that if we change our perspective of what suffering is, we get to see that God suffered for humanity, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
And suffering allows us to be in the compassionate heart of God because we get to empathize what God has done for us on a way extreme, less of a... We get to experience the empathy of what God has endured for us on a less extreme of a level. And so I think I finally understand at this point in my life what suffering means and what Paul means by take joy in suffering.
Because when I suffer, I get to experience the heart of God and I get to experience a part of him I've never been able to experience before. And so I'm just going to leave with that encouragement is that if God suffered for you, why won't you suffer for him? Why won't you suffer for him? Because God is a blameless God who is just right and perfectly good. And yet he didn't have to suffer, but did.
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