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Sometimes life seems so full of difficulties and trouble, it's easy to blame God. I used to hold God responsible for everything bad that happened in my life and look to Him for answers, with annoyance that I never seemed to find any.

There's so much suffering in our world, with babies born with illness and diseases through to the death of anyone. We can't go through our lives without some form of suffering and while some of it is caused by humans, other suffering doesn't seem to have an explanation. How could I live such an unhappy life with so much suffering if there's a God who loves everyone?

While some people live in luxury and surrounded by money and wealth, others live in poverty with no food, clothes or shelter. I used to think that if God cared for everyone, why aren't we more equal? Surely He wouldn't let His creation suffer when He has the power to put things right. It just doesn't seem to make sense.

I also think of the stories in the media every day: stories of murders, rape, abuse and all the crimes you can think of ranging from Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein through the person at the end of our street who seems to be an innocent, quiet loner but has a list of offences the police are still trying to calculate. Why does God allow such evil in our world? This suffering and evil is something Job asks in the Bible and has to endure many different examples of personal suffering and pain before reaching an answer, but why he had to go through all this before finding a personal peace is still hard for religious people to grasp, let alone atheists.

Our world is also so full of hatred it's difficult to accept that God created us with such love. The religious persecution, racism, prejudice and discrimination that different people and groups experience on a daily basis shows we aren't equal, but are capable of using such force against each other. These sometimes result in the destruction of war, battles, civil wars, the Holocaust or any means by which some people seek revenge against others. How have we deteriorated from the perfection of the Garden of Eden to the state of the world today?

Some people explain this using the argument of human freewill. We have the choice how to behave and often make the wrong decision or the decision which unexpectedly results in the wrong consequences. Sometimes it has nothing to do with what God has done or hasn't done for us.

There's also the explanation of the devil. As a Christian, I now think that it's the devil who influences us and tempts us towards making wrong decisions. God can guide us, but only if we listen to Him clearly. The Fall of Adam and Eve shows the power the devil has over us when we want him to, but blaming God isn't right, even for things like natural disasters. I still wonder how a God who is all-good (omnibenevolent), all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient) can allow things like floods, hurricanes and earthquakes which kill so many people and leave so many others homeless. But all I can say is that the devil's influence on this world isn't something we always know and things happen for reasons we can't always understand. Sometimes I wish things were simpler but blaming God doesn't make things better. I now try to turn to prayer for understanding, wisdom and comfort in the hope that that these things will stop and God will help us in the meantime.

Learn more about this author, Ben Hughes.
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