Why do children suffer?

Suffering, Evil & Hard QuestionsIn theological review

The short answer

The Bible gives no tidy reason why children suffer, and this page will not invent one. It says children are a gift Jesus welcomed and blessed, that their suffering belongs to a world damaged by sin rather than to any fault in them or a simple fault in their parents, and that God grieves it and will end it. Some questions Job asked were never answered, and honesty requires leaving this one partly there.

The fuller answer

If you are asking this beside a hospital bed or a small grave, or with a child you love in pain, you deserve honesty before you deserve an argument. The Bible does not contain a sentence that explains why this child, this illness, this accident. Anyone who offers you a neat reason is offering more than God has given. What Scripture does give is a picture of how God regards children, and it is worth sitting with slowly before anything else is said.

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:14 (BSB)

When people brought children to Jesus, his disciples tried to turn them away, as if children were an interruption to serious work. Jesus was indignant. He took them in his arms, laid his hands on them and blessed them, and said the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Whatever else is unclear, this is not. Children are not small adults who must earn God's attention. In Jesus's own practice they received it first, freely, without achieving anything at all.

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.

Job 1:21 (BSB)

It helps to clear away two cruel explanations. Children's suffering is not, as a rule, punishment for their sins. They have barely lived. Nor does Scripture license blaming parents as a general theory: Jesus rejected exactly that reasoning when his disciples asked who had sinned, a blind man or his parents. The deeper truth is harder and simpler. Children suffer because the whole world is damaged, and its damage falls without asking anyone's age. Job lost his children too, and God never told him why.

I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us.

Romans 8:18 (BSB)

What remains is not an explanation but a company to keep. The God of the Bible is described as a father who has compassion on his children, and Jesus wept at the grave of a friend even while knowing he would raise him. Grief, in Scripture, is not a failure of faith. And the story ends with suffering ended, not merely understood: a renewed creation where pain is gone. Until then, bring God the unedited truth, as the psalms do. He has never once asked sufferers to tidy it up first. And let other people carry some of the weight with you: that, too, is one of God's ordinary kindnesses.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

Why do bad things happen to good people?Bad things happen to good people because this world is fallen and its harms are not distributed by merit, a point Jesus made himself when he refused to blame disaster victims for their own deaths. The book of Job strips away the tidy theory that suffering always matches sin. God never told Job he deserved his losses. In the end God vindicated the sufferer and rebuked the friends who had explained him.Why does God allow suffering?The Bible does not give one reason for every instance, and anyone who offers you one is overselling. It does give a frame: the world is fallen and groaning, human evil does real damage, God is patient toward a world he intends to judge and remake, and in the meantime he has entered the suffering himself in Jesus Christ. The final answer is not an explanation but an ending: a day when he wipes away every tear.Where is God when it hurts?With you, is the Bible's answer, though rarely in the way we would have scripted. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble, says the psalm, written out of trouble, not about it. And in Christ he has not watched suffering from outside it. The God of the cross knows the inside of pain, and his invitation to the weary is rest, not explanations.Is it OK to be angry with God?Yes, in the way the Bible itself models: bringing anger to God honestly in prayer is not rebellion, and roughly a third of the psalms do exactly that. Job accused, Jeremiah protested, and Jesus on the cross prayed the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm of abandonment. Scripture never rebukes grief stricken honesty. What it warns against is the anger that hardens into contempt and walks away rather than speaking.What happens to babies who die?The Bible does not give a direct statement about babies who die, and Christians should not claim more than the texts carry. It does give real grounds for hope: David expected to go to his child, God describes the very young as not yet knowing good from evil, and Jesus welcomed little children. Many Christians trust God's mercy in Christ for them.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Bible Character: JobThe blameless man of Uz who lost his wealth, his servants and his children in a single day, refused to curse God, argued his case through long nights of debate, and was restored.