Is God Still Good When Life Hurts?

When life becomes painful, we may begin to interpret God through our circumstances.

If our prayers appear to be answered, we conclude that God is good. If suffering continues, we wonder whether He has stopped caring or whether He has turned against us.

Psalm 119:65–72 gives us another way to understand our circumstances. The psalmist is suffering, yet he begins with this remarkable testimony:

“You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word.”

He does not say that God dealt well with him until life became difficult. His testimony includes the affliction.

This does not mean that the pain was imaginary or unimportant. The psalmist had been mistreated and smeared with lies. His suffering was real. Yet he interpreted it through what he knew about God rather than interpreting God through what he felt about his suffering.

You Do Not Have to Understand the Path

A sheep does not understand everything its shepherd knows about the terrain, the weather, the predators, or the safest place to find water. Its welfare does not depend on understanding the path. It depends on the wisdom and care of the shepherd.

In the same way, we will not always understand what God is doing. But Christians have been given something more dependable than an explanation for every painful circumstance. We have God’s revealed character, His promises, and the cross of Christ.

The cross is God’s definitive declaration that He is for His people. His providence may confuse us, but Calvary shows us what we must never doubt.

Affliction Can Bring Us Back

The psalmist recognized that suffering had changed his direction:

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.”

Affliction exposed his wandering and reminded him how much he needed his Shepherd. It became a bridge between self-directed living and renewed obedience.

Not every hardship is the direct result of a particular sin. The Bible does not allow us to make that assumption. Yet suffering often reveals things comfort allowed us to overlook: misplaced confidence, neglected prayer, spiritual distraction, or dependence on something that could not sustain us.

The psalmist therefore asked God for more than relief. He prayed, “Teach me.”

That is a difficult but fruitful prayer: “Lord, do not let me pass through this without learning what You intend to teach me.”

What Is Affliction Producing?

Suffering does not automatically make us better. The same hardship may harden one person and soften another. Affliction reveals what is in us and shapes what we are becoming.

Is your suffering making you more prayerful or more bitter? More dependent upon God or more demanding? More tender or more cynical? More devoted to God’s Word or more distant from it?

The question is not only, “Why is this happening?” It is also, “What is God producing in me through this?”

A Treasure That Cannot Be Taken Away

By the end of the passage, the psalmist can say:

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

He is not calling pain pleasant. He is recognizing what God accomplished through it. His suffering taught him to value God’s Word more than thousands of pieces of gold and silver.

Affliction reminds us how fragile health, reputation, comfort, plans, and financial security can be. God’s Word speaks of a life, kingdom, and inheritance that suffering cannot destroy.

God’s goodness is not contradicted by our affliction. We may not yet see what He is accomplishing, but we can look to the cross and know that He is able to bring immeasurable good through profound suffering.

Perhaps the question is not merely, “How can God be good while I am suffering?”

Perhaps it is, “Will I trust the goodness of God while I am suffering?”

Listen to “The Path of Affliction and Goodness,” a sermon from the series Walking in the Word - Psalm 119:65–72.

Related Sermons:

• The Path Through Affliction — Finding hope and comfort in God’s Word when suffering lingers.
• When God Is Silent — Trusting God when you cannot see where He is or what He is doing.
• Hope for the Hopeless — Holding fast to the hope of our living Redeemer.