The Question I Was Asked Most When I Was a Pastor

The trouble with being a pastor is that often, people expect you to have answers to life’s big existential questions.

“What is the meaning of life?”

“How do I know which religion is true?”

“Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?”

Heck, I don’t know! Maybe. Maybe not.

But, of all the thousands of questions that I was asked, there was just one question that came up over and over — more than any other. It seemed to echo through the halls of my church, reverberate in my inbox, and often catch me off guard in casual conversation.

Here it is:

“If God is so good, why do bad things happen?”

It’s a question that is deceptively simple yet profoundly complex. It has haunted theologians, philosophers, and seekers for centuries, and it’s one that doesn’t have a tidy, one-size-fits-all answer. For many, it’s a question born out of personal pain and tragedy — a desperate plea for understanding in the face of seemingly senseless loss. For others, it’s a philosophical puzzle, a challenge to reconcile the existence of a loving, all-powerful God with the presence of suffering and evil in the world.

As a pastor, I found myself grappling with this question on a regular basis, both in my own heart and mind and in the conversations I had with congregants, friends, and skeptics alike. In fact, I think the fact that we ask this question reveals an awful lot about human beings, God, and the universe.

A personal struggle

For much of my early life, I had neatly packaged answers to the question of suffering. It centered around the idea that we inhabit a fallen world where we live with the consequences of human sin. This was the story I was fed in the evangelical system. And, to be honest, as a pastor, I found solace in the familiar narratives of redemption and restoration found in the scriptures. I preached sermons on the importance of faith in the midst of trials, pointing to biblical figures like Job or the apostle Paul as examples of perseverance in the face of suffering.

Then, my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Suddenly, the neat theological frameworks and comforting narratives I had relied on were shattered like fragile glass under the weight of a sledgehammer. The words I had spoken from the pulpit echoed back to me with painful irony, mocking my attempts to make sense of the senseless.

How could Adam and Eve eating a piece of forbidden fruit from a tree cause this? How could their actions thousands of years ago have any bearing on the pain and suffering we are experiencing in the here and now? Sure, everyone has made mistakes, but, come on, God… cancer!? Really?!

Suddenly, I imagined myself asking myself as a pastor the same question I was asked by many when I was a pastor: “If God is so good, why do bad things happen?”

Only this time, I had lost my confident swagger, and I was bereft of answers.

The unanswerable question

It’s time that I told the truth. I can’t tell you why God allows pain and suffering — at least not without sound pappy and manipulative. So, I’m not even going to try.

God doesn’t offer any explanations, either.

It’s incredibly unsatisfying.

There is only one thing that God offers in response to suffering in the world. And, it’s not an answer. It’s the question itself.

Let me explain.

Yearning for God in Troubled Times

I’ve realized that the profound truth lies not in answering “If God is so good, why do bad things happen?” but in understanding what motivates us to ask it. If you can press pause on your quest for an answer and turn your attention to the question, it will lead you to some rather amazing truths.

Here they are:

We understand the difference between fair and unfair

Have you ever stopped to wonder why suffering bothers us so much?

Could it be that deep within us, we carry an innate sense of justice, a longing for fairness that echoes the very nature of the divine? When we witness suffering — whether it’s our own or someone else’s — it strikes at the core of our beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil.

My wife is a 42-year-old mother of three. It is completely unfair that she has cancer. I think it’s pretty natural for me to feel this way.

None of us can help but feel a sense of indignation when faced with injustice. There is a righteous anger that demands to be heard. It’s a reflection of our God-given sense of fairness, a reminder that we are created in the image of a just and compassionate God.

God doesn’t explain the suffering, but the fact that we are troubled by the suffering points to there being a just God from whom our sense of right and wrong flows.

We want to believe that someone is in control

We all assume, subconsciously or otherwise, that the universe is somehow on our side. We want to believe that a higher power is orchestrating the events of our lives with purpose, meaning, and, yes, divine protection. And when we don’t feel that, we get angry. The fact that we feel this profound sense of injustice points us to a truth: Human beings struggle with the idea that maybe there isn’t someone steering the ship.

When something goes wrong, we scream at the universe, “I demand to speak to the manager!” And the reason we do this is that we believe that there is one… or at least there should be.

God doesn’t explain the suffering, but our instinct to demand a manager in times of crisis reveals our deep-seated desire for a higher power to intervene and bring order to chaos and our equally deep-seated belief that there is one available.

We want to believe that the “someone” who is in control is good

It’s not enough for us to simply acknowledge a higher power. We yearn for that power to embody goodness and compassion. It’s natural, in the midst of profound suffering, to question whether the universe is governed by a loving and just God or by an indifferent or even malevolent force.

Jim Carrey, in the film ‘Bruce Almighty,’ famously says, “God is just a mean kid with a magnifying glass. And I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Who hasn’t felt this way before?

And yet, the fact that we plead with God to act justly on our behalf says that deep within us, we still long for God to be good. In fact, we must believe Him to be good, or we wouldn’t go to Him, would we?

God doesn’t explain the suffering, and yet we still cling to the belief that he not only present, but is good enough to ease our burdens and bring meaning to our pain.

We long for “happily ever after”

How many times have you found yourself drawn into a story, cheering for the characters to overcome their struggles and find their “happily ever after?” It’s a narrative we’ve all been brought up on — from fairy tales to epic adventures.

But why does it resonate so deeply within us?

Maybe it’s because, deep down, we all crave closure and resolution. We want to believe that no matter how tough life gets, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, a promise of joy and fulfilment waiting for us.

The question “If God is so good, why do bad things happen?” is based on the assumption that it is God’s responsibility to make things right in the end.

In the Christian tradition, the book of Revelation paints a vivid picture of a future where God will do just that — where pain and suffering will be no more and where peace and joy will reign forever. Revelation 21:4 speaks to this hope: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

This longing for “happily ever after” sustains us through life’s darkest moments, reminding us that our story isn’t over yet. We’re part of something bigger — a grand narrative of redemption and restoration, where love conquers all, and every tear is wiped away.

And even death doesn’t have the final say.

God doesn’t explain the suffering, and yet we still cling to the belief that He is not only present and good enough to ease our burdens and bring meaning to our pain but also that He will bring about a just conclusion to our present troubles.

Something beautiful

“Why God? Why is this happening to us? Why does my wife have Cancer? It isn’t fair, God! It’s just not right!”

I have uttered these words many times in my recent prayers. I have peppered God with questions, demanding that he explain himself. I have asked aloud, “If God is so good, then why do bad things happen?”

And while the answer to the question is not forthcoming, the question itself speaks truth to me. I ask the question because I am made in the image of a good and just God, from whom my sense of right and wrong flows. I ask the question because I believe that God will hear the question. I ask the question because I believe that God is good. I ask the question because I believe that God will bring about a resolution in this life or the next.

That’s his job.

I lay on my bed last night, staring at the ceiling in the thin light of the moon that peeked between the gaps in my curtains, and I was wondering, not for the first time, how much longer my wife would be lying by my side.

And I asked God that question again — the same one I had been asked over and over when I was a pastor.

“Why?”

And, in that moment — call it providence if you like — the words of an old song we used to sing in church came to my mind. It’s one of the few hymns that resonates with me just as strongly now as it did back in my evangelical church days:

“If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life’s best were the hopes
That I harbored down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So, I wrapped it all in the rags of my life
And laid it at the cross

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion, He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life”

Then I realized that the answer is the question.

And the tears flowed.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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