Where is God amid suffering?

Political and economic instability, climate crisis, war, social division. These fracture our world and cause terrible suffering.

- Lyse Comins

From civilians killed and women raped in armed conflict and starving children living in hopeless poverty to the disabled war veteran living in his car on the streets of Los Angeles and the mother mourning her toddler murdered in the war-torn Gaza Strip, the evidence of a broken world lies bare.

Atheists point to the evil and suffering in the world as an argument proving there is no God; if He existed surely He would intervene.

Where is God in our suffering? If God is love, why does he allow such pain?

Many Christians can’t answer these honest questions.

But for Christian Universalists who believe God’s redemptive love extends to all people, these concerns do not point to the absence of God, but to His presence working toward restoration, even in the midst of suffering.

God is a very present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) and has never been absent from human struggle.

Christ’s incarnation is the ultimate example of God partaking in the suffering of humanity. He came into a world of occupation, oppression, poverty and injustice.

The first of several violent attempts made on his life was as a little child. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod, the king of Judea, slaughtered the male children of Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus, who he feared would eventually seize his kingdom.

Jesus walked among the poor, the sick, and the outcasts of his day — the greedy tax collectors, drinkers and sinners — and challenged the powerful religious leaders of his time. He was the incarnation of God’s love for everyone, including those rejected by society.