My thoughts on a discussion about faith I had with my daughter over the weekend…
She said “I believe in God, but I struggle with certain biblical ideas”… She followed up with… I guess I am Agnostic… (acknowledges uncertainty, shows curiosity, and intellectual humility, but not committed to any religious system). And she said… “I DO have issues with a God that allows suffering, or uses suffering to teach humans a lesson. I do not like the idea that God and Satan are sitting up there, moving us humans around like pieces on a chessboard.”
I enjoy talking with anybody who seeks to understand who they really are; and why they believe what they do. It encourages me that she does not reject every faith idea I ever introduced to her in her life. I said that if I were coercive or pressuring with regard to my belief in God – I would be in the wrong.
What she expressed to me is that she rejects a picture of a God that feels cruel, manipulative, or unsafe. That matters. To me, it is smart that she cares to make this distinction.
Truthfully, 100% I have had similar thoughts/questions. So I will attempt to reframe what I think she fears most:
“Am I just a pawn?”
“Will God sacrifice me to prove a point?”
“If I suffer, is it because I’m being used?”
Her fear is sharper now because she’s: pregnant, vulnerable, responsible for new life, and is already aware the world is unsafe.
So this isn’t a conversation about some abstract theology. This is her natural maternal instinct meeting existential theology.
Since I am still studying the book of Job, I will use it to illustrate my thoughts. – A common (but wrong) way people interpret Job is:
God and Satan make a wager…
Humans are collateral damage…
Faith is a loyalty test…
Suffering is a tool to force belief…
If that were true — my daughter would be right to be repulsed by my Christian faith. But that is not what the book is actually teaching.
-What Job is really about-
Job is NOT teaching: That God enjoys testing humans, That Satan has free rein to torture people, That suffering is designed to coerce belief, That faith is proven by endurance alone.
Job is confronting: The false belief that good behavior guarantees protection; The idea that God can be reduced to a formula; The human urge to explain suffering, instead of sitting with it; This danger of a theology that speaks ‘about God’ – but not from relationship.
God is not “OK” with torture — Satan is limited – They are not partners. In the book of Job, Satan is not God’s equal; he does not initiate the universe; he does not create suffering out of nothing; he does not control outcomes.
What Job exposes is this uncomfortable truth:
A world with genuine freedom is also a world where harm is possible.
God allowing freedom is not the same as God endorsing cruelty.
And here’s the key distinction my daughter needed to hear:
God does not use suffering to make people love Him. That would be coercion — not love.
Why God allows questions… and why He does not immediately answer them… for example:
God never explains Job’s suffering.
Not because He doesn’t care —but because explanations don’t heal grief.
Instead, God does something wild: He shows up. He speaks with Job, not about Job. He restores relationship, before restoring circumstances. The message is not “This was worth it.” The message is “You were never abandoned.”
Jesus reframes Job entirely. (this matters for our faith)
If God’s character were truly revealed in Job alone, my daughter’s worries would remain unresolved. But Christianity does not stop at Job.
Jesus: Rejects the idea that suffering is punishment. Refuses to blame victims. Weeps instead of explaining. Absorbs suffering, rather than inflicting it.
In Jesus, God does not stand at a distance and allow harm —He enters it. That is the opposite of a she described to me as a God and Satan playing a “cosmic game” with us.
All I could really say was this:
“If God were the kind of being who used people as pawns, I wouldn’t worship Him either.”
Job isn’t about God playing games — it’s about humans trying to turn God into a system they can control.
And Jesus shows us God doesn’t watch suffering from afar — He steps into it.”
What I found encouraging was – I am a safe place for her to share these fears with right now. And it is OK if I do not have all the answers. She does not always need my certainty, just my presence.
She also needs to know God is safe to question. A crisis of faith during a pregnancy to me is probably the MOST natural thing that can happen to a woman:
It’s discernment. It’s instinct. It’s her soul saying: “Whatever God is — He must be worthy of my child.” Our conversation felt special, because it acknowledged that she is not far from God — she’s just refusing a version of Him that doesn’t look like love. 💛
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