By now, you have most likely heard about the horror that descended on El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio last weekend. Two different shootings left 29 dead and many others wounded. While many of us have varying opinions, we all share a sadness and sympathy for those left in the wake of these senseless tragedies. We pray for their recovery and comfort.

The problem of pain has been likened to a great question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart. Something inside us yearns an explanation—even for those who do not believe in a transcendent reality. The Barna Group conducted a national survey asking, “If you could ask God one question and you knew he would answer you, what would you ask?” The number one response was, “Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?”

The Bible says that God has dealt everyone a measure of faith. But for many people, faith doesn’t come easy. Senseless violence fills many with doubts that decimate what faith they did have.

The problem of pain has been likened to a great question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart.

The skeptics are not silent. They readily point to the cold, hard reality of pain and suffering and label those who believe in a loving God as simpletons who’ve taken a leap in the dark. How could anyone with half a brain see the catastrophic impact of mass killings and believe in the existence of a loving God?

In a recent podcast, Al Mohler stated that “there can be no doubt that we’re looking at the confluence of so many different evil streams.” Yet, as I ponder this issue, I think those various streams flow out of one source. So, for those struggling to find answers I offer the following thoughts.

1. Resist the temptation to blame.

Within hours of the shootings, fingers of blame were pointed in all directions. Culpability was laid upon the president, video games, and the weapons used to carry out these horrendous attacks.

As Christians, we understand the root cause behind all of the hatred, violence, and killing perpetrated in mass shootings: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23)

Therefore, we need not blame anyone except the young men who perpetrated these cowardly and disgusting acts. The root cause is found in the human heart, which can only be changed through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

2. Hear the voice of God.

We know intuitively that these horrible tragedies were essentially evil. We have a notion that this is not the way things should be. But oftentimes, the only way a rebel at heart will come to grips with their need for God is through the experience of pain. As C.S. Lewis so aptly stated in The Problem of Pain, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.”

Moreover, the very presence of evil in this world points us to God’s existence. This was a point that Lewis hammered home in his wonderful work, Mere Christianity. By recognizing that evil exists, we are admitting that there is an objective standard for what constitutes good.

That very notion corresponds to the reality of a Supreme Good and, of course, that Supreme Good is another name for God (Mark 10:18). Augustine put it this way, “If there is no God, why is there so much good in the world?” But we never hear people asking that question, do we?

Think about this: faith can only exist in a world of trouble. If we lived in a perfect world, there would be no need of faith. For example, I don’t take the sunshine by faith. I experience the reality of it every day. And although God has revealed Himself in creation and in our conscience, He remains to a degree hidden from us. He gives us the clues to His existence and nature.

Faith can only exist in a world of trouble. If we lived in a perfect world, there would be no need of faith.

If God gave you absolute proof instead of a revelation, man could no more deny God than he could deny the sun! God gives man a measure of faith and enough evidence so that anyone who wants to know the truth can know it. Note what Paul told the idol worshippers on the Acropolis in Athens: “His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist.” (Acts 17:27)

God wants you to trust Him. And that is only possible in a world of trouble.

3. Find comfort in the sovereignty of God.

David, the shepherd king of Israel, looked at the heavens and proclaimed, “what is man that you are mindful of him?” Let me ask you, how can mere finite man be so sure that a God of infinite wisdom would not tolerate short-range evil and tragedy in order that a greater good might come of it, a good that only he could foresee?

Would you agree that we are above the animals, e.g., man is a higher form of life than a bear? What if a bear is caught in a trap and a ranger wants to free him? He shoots him with a tranquilizer dart which the bear perceives as an attack; the ranger has to push him further into the trap to release the spring which causes the bear further pain and suffering. The bear sees the ranger as a cruel and hateful being, but the bear is wrong because he doesn’t have the capacity to see the broader purpose.

Finite man can no more completely comprehend God than a bear can comprehend man. The bear should trust the ranger, and man should trust God, who seeks only man’s good.

Scottish theologian James Stewart wrote: “It is the spectators, the people who are outside, looking at the tragedy, from whose ranks the skeptics come; it is not those who are actually in the arena and who know suffering from the inside. Indeed, the fact is that it is the world’s greatest sufferers who have produced the most shining examples of unconquerable faith.”

God’s ultimate answer to the problem of pain and suffering is that He came down into it. He literally became a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. As the songwriter put it: He took my sins and my sorrows, he made them his very own; he bore the burden to Calv’ry, and suffered, and died alone. How marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever be: How marvelous! How wonderful! Is my Savior’s love for me!