Information Related to "Suffering: How It Began, How It Will End"
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The Bible tells us that God created human beings in His own image and gave us the privilege to manage-to "have dominion over"-the rest of His earthly creation (Genesis 1:26-28). Yet we find that many aspects of human life here on earth are not yet completely under our control.
Human suffering is a prominent example. That a loving, all-powerful
God-as described in the Bible-would allow terrible human
anguish to go on perplexes many people. Some even use human suffering
as justification for denying God's existence.
Of course, we need to realize that suffering became a possibility when God created beings with free will-able to choose right or wrong. He could have made preprogrammed robots incapable of choosing wrongly; but devoid of free will, such creatures would also have been incapable of a genuine relationship with Him as He desired-just as we desire to have with others.
So much of human anguish is the result of people making wrong choices with the free will given them. They hurt others as well as themselves, and God is at this time allowing us to learn important lessons from hard experience. Here are a couple of scriptural examples of God allowing people to learn by consequences:
"Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger" (Proverbs 19:15, emphasis added throughout). Also, "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again" (verse 19, New International Version).
Related Information on UCG Sites:
Sidebar: How Paul Described His Thinking Before Conversion
Sidebar: What Job Learned by Suffering
Table of Contents that includes "Suffering: How It Began, How It Will End"
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