When we face great suffering, we want to know why the Lord would allow us to hurt so much. If God is good, why are we permitted to grieve so intensely or to suffer great pain of any kind? There are Christians who falsely teach that God rewards obedience and goodness with good health, prosperity, and happiness but that he punishes us with disease, death, and despair when we are not good enough Christians. In response to your bankruptcy or miscarriage, they might say something cruel like, “You must be doing something to upset God.” But is this correct? Are you being punished for sin? After all, in Revelation 3:19, God confirms:
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”
If I hurt, am I being punished?
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Firstly, we need to acknowledge that the Lord is a Father who disciplines his children. “Do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” (Proverbs 3:11-12) No caring parent allows his or her children to get away with doing unsafe or unkind things. He will try to discipline in a way that makes sense, such as taking away toys that are being used to hurt others or giving a “time-out” when a child is being rude to Auntie and Uncle. A child who is never disciplined learns there are no consequences for sin.
John Piper explains that the Lord will use discipline - some kind of trial, even a very intense one - to grow us: “If he brings any kind of hardship into our life, it is with measured, careful, wise, loving application of his wisdom and his grace to our situation. And so he is calling for us to have greater faith and greater humility.”
But is it discipline you are experiencing? The real question, says Piper, is, “Am I sinning?” If so, then the Lord might be trying to get you to pay attention to that sin. Now, you have the opportunity to see it, confess, repent, and nurture spiritual growth and intimacy with the Lord. This could, indeed, be discipline.
Pain is also part of living in a broken world. No one can get through life without a diagnosis, a final notice, or a heavy discussion at the bank. We all face trials and some of them are the result of another person’s sin. At times, those sins have had nothing to do with you - you were collateral damage, where the consequences of an individual’s sin were wider than he or she could have imagined. At other times, you are the victim of someone’s jealousy, malice, or anger. A spouse, child, or co-worker wanted to hurt you.
Then, there is the grief that comes from being part of people’s lives and watching them self-destruct. Your friend did not mean to cause you pain, but she has started drinking again after years of sobriety, and she is rejecting God. You ache for the child you love who has stopped going to church and says she does not believe in God.
There are times when God brings discipline upon his children. In fact, Hebrews says that it's because he loves us that he disciplines us. But that discipline is for the purpose of restoration, not retribution.
We live with sinful and broken people, and their sin touches our lives all the time. Christ was sinless, yet he took on sin and paid the penalty for all of our sins. He was not being disciplined; he was taking the punishment we deserved.
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Clearly, God DOES punish sin, or he HAS done so. But Sam Storms argues that the price for OUR sins has been paid in full, and we are not being punished now. Punishment has a different connotation from discipline. Take a workplace disciplinary meeting, for example, the purpose of which is to help an employee understand that harassing another member of staff is wrong. He might have thought his actions were funny, but now he knows they are not: someone has been hurt. Discipline aims to guide someone towards restoration with others, whether an employer, coworker, friend, or with the Lord.
“There are times when God brings discipline upon his children. [...] But that discipline is for the purpose of restoration, not retribution.” He explains that punishment, in human terms, is like “paying someone back” for what they did. God does not act in this way. “There are things God will never do with our sin—one of which is that he will never repay us. He will never count it against us.” Human beings like to get revenge, to even the score, and to remember every wrong that someone ever committed against them. God does not do that.
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When it comes to suffering, we want to think about how we respond to pain and suffering, whether it is God’s discipline of our sin or not.
1. Take it to God. This seems so obvious, but we often forget to tell him how we feel. He knows anyway: why bother? We bother because he wants us to confide, he wants that to be our choice. He wants us to remember that he is always accessible. Ask him for help because “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
2. Remember that “it is finished”. (John 19:30) Jesus gave his life so that we could be restored to the Father in a loving and obedient relationship as children. When we believe God is punishing us, we have forgotten that Christ died on the cross and that he took the punishment we deserve. We imply that God is now punishing us. Why would Jesus suffer and die on the cross to take our punishment, only so the Lord could punish us anyway? God is not malicious, and Jesus’ sacrifice was all-sufficient.
3. Suffer well. The unbelieving world is watching us Christians to see if we believe what we preach, that the love of God is the only thing worth bragging about, and that we can do all things in Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13), even suffer without becoming bitter. We need to realize that even our suffering can be a form of ministry, glorifying God. Our pain is not punishment, but it has a purpose.
We have an opportunity, from a place of suffering, to be more reliant on God. We can learn the humility that is required to ask for help. We can also learn what it means to be God’s servant at all times and to share the gospel, which brings hope to those who feel ashamed, as though the universe or God or someone is punishing them.
When someone we love feels as though God must be punishing him or her, we can point to the cross and say, “God loves you so much he would do this for you. For me, too.” We can also share our stories with others so that they stop feeling so alone and singled out for God’s wrath. God gave us Biblical stories, but our contemporary stories are easy to relate to.
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Speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) is not an instruction to preach to someone and tell him or her, during a time of anguish, to do better, to be a better Christian, to stop being a sinner and, thereby, to earn a reprieve from suffering. We never know the whole story of what God is doing with our lives. The injury, disease, or loss you are going through is serving God’s glory, could be a part of someone else’s salvation story, or might be the means by which God shows you his power in unforgettable ways. Not a single person is able to say, “Live like me, and the Lord will stop you from suffering.” We are all sinners deserving of the punishment we do not and will not receive. If you feel like you are being punished, get YOUR story out into the light of day: share it, and let others expose the lies you believe about God and about who you are.
Source
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/christian-your-pain-is-never-punishment#:~:text=Is%20God%20Punishing%20Me?%20At%20a
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-it-feels-like-god-is-punishing-you#:~:text=As%20a%20Christian,%20when%20you%20experience
https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/1-8.htm#:~:text=Verse%208.%20-%20In%20flaming%20fire;
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-do-i-know-if-im-being-disciplined-by-god
https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-gods-discipline-and-gods-punishment/
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