Some people ask, “If God is good, why is there suffering?” That won’t be answered here. Instead, we’re going to look at the question itself. Does the question make sense?

There was a man who had a dream once. A  nightmare, really. And this dream made him really scared. He was not liking the dream at all, and he saw many horrible things, but then he woke up. After he woke up, he went to go play with his wife and children, and he had an amazing day. In fact, all the days of his life were amazing and filled with love. Only the dream was bad. The rest was great. But what if he started fixating on the dream? Would it make sense if he said that his whole life sucked because he had one bad dream? If he told you about the dream, would you agree with him that his life sucked? What is a dream in the face of a lifetime?

A dream is short—a lifetime is long. But a lifetime is short compared to eternity. Consciousness doesn’t stop. It keeps going. This lifetime is just a short snippet of everything you’ll ever experience. God lets you choose what you’ll experience  Make peace with God, and make peace with God. Do that, and you choose unending peace and joy. You will live in his Kingdom forever. So when you enter his Kingdom, will you complain? “I have a lot of joy now, and I’ll have it forever, but there was this one time that something hurt.” What is a lifetime in the face of eternity?

Take a cup of water. If you add a cup of dirt to it, it becomes dirty. You won’t want to drink it. The cup of dirt ruins it. Now take a vast ocean of sweet water. There’s no end to this ocean. There are no shores where it ends. If you add a cup of dirt to it, it dissolves completely. You wouldn’t ever notice that dirt had been added to it. The ocean is so vast, that nothing can affect it. Any suffering you might have felt will dissolve in the ocean of joy. Believe in God, and act righteously. The ocean will be yours.

So, why would you question God’s goodness? Because there’s a tiny segment that you don’t like? Try counting to four instead.