A little baby dies from suffocation while in the crib.

A husband/father on a construction site is crushed to death by a falling steel beam.

Grandparents lose their lives after being unable to get out of a burning house.

A rider falls off a horse and the impact with the ground cripples him from the neck down.

A loved one is diagnosed with cancer.

Oftentimes in dire situations, such as above, we Christians seek to comfort with words that encourage an acceptance of God’s will. We say that God, in His wisdom, knows best. I’m sure you’ve heard these words especially spoken by ministers at funerals.

But what we’re really saying is that it’s God’s will for these sufferings to happen; that it is what He desires. We’re saying that death, injury, and disease are what He wants for those afflicted, and that He caused it to happen.

Is that true about God?  I see the answer in the passage in which a person says to Jesus, “Lord, if you’re willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus responded that, indeed, He was willing, and proceeded to heal the man (Matthew 8: 2, 3).

I see the answer in 3 John 1: 2. The apostle John was inspired by God to write, “Beloved, I pray in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”

I see the answer in Hebrews 10: 7. There, Jesus says that He came to earth to do the will of God. God’s will for Jesus was for Him to be the great Healer; not only of our sins, but of our physical infirmities too, even to the point of raising some from the dead. There isn’t any recorded mention of Jesus killing or injuring anyone.

So who is responsible for the sufferings that come upon us? We get a behind-the-scene look in the story about Jesus healing a crippled, bent-over woman (Luke 13: 10-16). She had been in that condition for eighteen years. Lord Jesus said Satan was responsible for her being bound in that way.

That Satan is responsible for our sufferings is also seen in the early part of the book of Job. The curtain is pulled back and we see that it is Satan who instigates Job’s troubles.

Now it’s true that at one point, Job too, in his despondency, attributed his misfortune to God. He said to his wife in Job 2: 10. “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? He made the statement, but as we know from our reading, it was a mistaken assertion. Job, himself, later admitted that he was uninformed.

We must be careful with our intended words of comfort. To attribute disease and death and other disasters to the will of God is to give comfort to the devil. We become accomplices in his efforts to portray God to the world as a monster.

God is the giver of good things and perfect gifts (James 1: 17). Satan is the origin of bad things.