God uses suffering for redemptive purpose, not as a meaningless fate.
At three years old, I was diagnosed with scleroderma—a disease that causes skin to harden and limits its ability to heal. From that point on, my life took a different path. Between the ages of four and six, I underwent frequent medical procedures, including constant blood tests, weekly casting, nightly methotrexate injections, and eventually a skin graft to prevent the disease from spreading.
At eleven, I experienced my first grand mal seizure caused by a coup de sabre lesion on my forehead. Around the same time, I underwent a triple arthrodesis to correct severe curvature in my right foot creating excessive scar tissue from the Scleroderma.
In high school, I encountered another challenge—my right leg was three and a half inches shorter than my left. In order to continue participating in athletic activities, a leg-lengthening procedure and Achilles tendon surgery were determined to be the best path forward. Leg-lengthening proved to be the most difficult procedure I experienced, teaching me that prolonged suffering can feel harder than facing death itself.
Scripture often describes life as a race that requires endurance (Hebrews 12:1), reminding us that life on earth is difficult because this is not our home. Through physical therapy, sleepless nights, seizures, and long seasons of recovery, I came to see this truth more clearly. Despite humanity’s limitations—especially our inability to fully understand why we suffer—joy remains present even in the midst of pain.
The Bible clarifies that our purpose is to glorify God, and it presents suffering not as meaningless chaos or merely the result of Eve’s punishment, but as a tool God uses for good. In doing so, Scripture challenges the idea that we are on earth simply to suffer.
God begins Genesis by creating the universe and everything in it. After each day of creation, He declares that what He has made is good. Included in this goodness is a specific role for humanity—one defined by purpose rather than power. God created mankind for His glory, not as His equal.
Adam and Eve were not created to be omniscient. When God places Adam in the garden, He gives him a clear command: Adam may eat freely from every tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warns that if Adam eats from that tree, he will surely die (Genesis 2:16).
In Genesis 3:2, the serpent tells Eve that eating the fruit will make her “like God,” knowing good and evil. This statement is deceptive—not because it is entirely false, but because it conceals God’s purpose for humanity. Satan’s temptation centers on grasping power and status rather than trusting God’s design. Strikingly, when God later banishes Adam from the garden, He echoes the serpent’s words almost verbatim:
“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” (Genesis 3:22, ESV)
The consequence of sin—death—was not outside of God’s knowledge or control. Humanity was created for a purpose, and death entered the world because Adam rejected that purpose. His attempt to seize equality with God violated the role God had given him.
For example, Jesus reveals humanity’s limitations through His incarnation:
“He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:7, ESV).
In becoming man, Christ willingly accepted human limitation—not by losing His divinity, but by humbling Himself and taking the posture of a servant.
This self-limitation emphasizes that humanity is not meant to possess complete understanding, including full knowledge of suffering.
Because suffering is difficult, it is frequently viewed through a negative lens and associated with Eve’s punishment. Yet from the beginning, pain is not presented in isolation. In the garden, suffering enters the world through childbirth—an experience that is inseparably connected to joy.
Tempted by the desire for power, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result, God pronounced judgment on the serpent, Adam, and Eve.
In God’s words to Eve, we see clear imagery. Eve is told she will experience pain in childbirth—a suffering that is intense and unavoidable, yet uniquely bound to joy.
A pattern is set. First comes anguish; then comes joy.
Jesus draws on this imagery from Genesis when preparing His disciples for His death. He explains that their sorrow will be like labor pains—overwhelming, yet overcome by joy in John 16,
"When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world” (John 16:21, ESV).
This imagery appears again in Romans 8:22 and Isaiah 26:17–18, where creation itself is described as groaning in labor, anticipating redemption. Pain, in Scripture, is often presented not as meaningless suffering, but as the beginning of something new, something joyful.
Sorrow naturally accompanies pain, yet joy remains present—even if hidden for a time. As John Piper observes,
"The rock of joy is submerged in grief, but it is not dislodged, overthrown, or removed” (Piper 2020).
Joy can be difficult to see when suffering feels overwhelming. Still, Scripture teaches that joy is something God supplies through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). Suffering is never random or purposeless, even when its meaning escapes us.
God could have created Adam with an immediate, untested relationship. He could have barred the serpent from the garden entirely. Scripture even shows that God is capable of such protection—Job, for example, was surrounded by a divine hedge (Job 1:10).
To deny that God allowed the fall is to diminish His omnipotence.
While Scripture does not explain why Adam’s fall was part of God’s plan, it does reveal the broader purpose of suffering after the fall. Suffering refines sinners, producing endurance, character, steadfastness, and hope—both for this life and for heaven (Job 23:10; Romans 5:3–5; James 1:2–4).
At the same time, suffering takes different forms for different purposes. Scripture gives several examples:
There is never a single explanation for trials. Eliphaz is rebuked for assuming Job’s suffering was punishment for hidden sin, when God had other purposes. This complexity makes suffering difficult to explain, but it also guards us from oversimplifying it.
Humanity was created for a purpose, and suffering—though rooted in Adam’s sin—is used by God to shape us so that we may fulfill that purpose.
Isaiah affirms that God forges His servants through affliction, shaping them as weapons for their purpose (Isaiah 54:16a), and if suffering refines us for a purpose unrelated to trials, then we cannot say that we exist only to suffer.
For Christians, it is important to acknowledge that “I don’t know” is sometimes the most honest answer. God never explains Job’s suffering in detail, nor do Paul, Peter, or James provide specific reasons for every hardship.
Ultimately, humanity exists to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. While that answer may feel insufficient to those who are suffering, Scripture may withhold a single explanation precisely because there is not one. Each person’s suffering serves different purposes—refinement, testing, discipline—but all are used by God for good.
Suffering is often viewed only through a negative lens, yet it enters the world through childbirth—an experience inseparably connected to joy. While we are given a general understanding of suffering’s purpose, the full complexity of every individual’s pain remains beyond human comprehension.
We are not here merely to suffer, even though suffering is the consequence of Adam’s disobedience. Our purpose remains unchanged, modeled perfectly by Christ, who glorified the Father in all things.
Unlike us, however, Jesus was sent into the world to suffer—bearing God’s wrath in our place and saving sinners from condemnation.
