Another way of stating this is if God is good why doesn�t he stop all the evil in the world. Because He doesn�t, He must either be impotent or apathetic.
There are several reasons for suffering and evil in the world. Just because God does not stop it makes him neither impotent nor apathetic. Some of the more obvious reasons for evil in the world are:
1. Man�s fallen nature and sin. All you have to do to see this is to read the Old Testament. Time after time man does things that come from a selfish self-centered will. And because of sin, things like perfection, kindness, justice and goodness get set aside, all because we are all born with a bent toward ourselves which produces sin.
2. Our wrong choices often get us into trouble. Since God has given man a free will to choose, how free would that will be if every time we were about to mess up he rescued us before we did anything wrong?
3. God�s judgment on an unjust people or nation. This is seen consistently in scripture. God requires certain things to be done to receive the benefits of doing them. When we refuse, judgment has and can come as a result of our willful disobedience.
4. To draw us closer to Him. Hebrews 12:10-12 tells us that God disciplines us for our good so that we might be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Often bad things are no caused by others but are the result of God�s active working in our life to get rid of something that is hindering our relationship with him.
An example of this is cancer. If you went to the Dr. and he said, �I have bad news, you have a form of cancer that is going to take your life if we don�t do something. Now we can wait and see if it goes away on its own which will be less painful, or we can do surgery and cut it out and more certainly save your life. The surgery will be a painful procedure, but it will be for your good in the long run.�
Let me ask you, which would you choose?
More than likely we would go with the temporary pain to have the long term cure. That is why God sometimes uses problems in our life, to improve our long term future with him.
To blame God for all the evil in the world is to miss the fact that He did not even stop the crucifixion of his own Son. That was for our own good. We can not know all the reasons why God does what he does. But it is certain as the Bible consistently tells us that God both sees and knows about our suffering and all the evil in the world. It also promises that he will one day take care of both. The fact that He has not done so yet does not mean He can not or will not do so. He will take care of it in his own time.