Op-Ed: Passing This One Test Will Stop All Suffering on Earth

“If God exists and He is a Good God, then why is there so much suffering in this world?” Everyone has heard this question at least once in their lifetime. The atheist uses this question to discredit God or His existence, while many believers in God quietly contemplate it in their beds at night.

The believer who loves God and trusts in His Wisdom says that suffering is a test for the believer. We hear sermons in churches, synagogues, and masjids all over the world encouraging believers to stay patient and endure, knowing that after death, the suffering will finally stop.

While this may be true for some people, it brings us to the next question: Why does God test us with suffering if He is a Merciful God? There is a simple answer to this question. But because of the confusion and darkness of ignorance that the world has been wrapped in for thousands of years, that simple answer requires a deeper explanation.

The simple answer is this: The Merciful God does not want us to suffer. The entire reason we are suffering is because we do not want God.

How can I say such a thing when there are billions of people around the world praying, crying, worshipping, and trying so hard to please God? To understand, we have to return to the very beginning of our creation.

When God created Adam, God blew into him the Spirit of God, otherwise known as the Holy

Spirit.

“And when your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am placing in the earth a Vicegerent (Ruler),’”— Qur’an 2:30

“When I form him perfect, and blow in him of My Spirit, then you must fall down before him in prostration.” — Qur’an 15:29

This Spirit from the All-Merciful was meant to be a piece of God dwelling with humanity, guiding them and ruling over them, ensuring that they lived in Paradise and happiness.

Adam and Eve lived in bliss. They took care of the planet and enjoyed all kinds of fruits that God had given them for free. The animals obeyed Adam. They had no complicated governments, systems, or laws. There were only two simple commands: be fruitful and multiply, and do not approach the Tree.

Then everything changed.

All hardship on earth began with one simple but enormous sin: Satan rejected the rulership of the Holy Spirit.

When the Spirit of God was blown into Adam, Satan refused to obey him because he rejected the Vessel that God had chosen for His Spirit to dwell in. Satan failed one single test, and that failure began an entire cycle of suffering and disobedience that would span thousands of years and continue all the way to the present age.

The test was simple: Obey the Holy Spirit in the Vessel which God chooses.

You might think this test belongs to the distant past. It does not.

The Scriptures show humanity being given the same test again and again. God chooses a Vessel. The Holy Spirit guides through that Vessel. Humanity is commanded to obey, but instead they reject him.

The root of this failure lies in the creation of two bloodlines on earth. When Adam and Eve are banished from Paradise, Eve is deceived by Satan, who comes to her in a beautiful angelic form, and she gives birth to his son, Cain.

Adam and Eve also have a son, Abel, who becomes the successor of Adam and the next Vessel of the Holy Spirit.

Just like his father Satan, Cain rejects obeying Abel. Envy grows into jealousy, and jealousy grows into murder. Cain kills Abel.

Cain then goes on to have children of his own, following in the footsteps of their father Satan. They spread corruption on the earth and reject the rightful Vessels of the Holy Spirit, thereby rejecting the rulership of the Holy Spirit Himself. They build cities and governments of their own. They invent weapons of war, currency, and borders, keeping people separated and forcing them to compete over resources that God had originally given them for free.

After Abel is killed, Adam and Eve have another son, Seth, who becomes Adam’s successor and the next Vessel of the Holy Spirit.

But Seth, too, is rejected.

The children of Cain refuse to allow him to rule over them, while they begin oppressing and threatening the children of Adam.

Once again, humanity is presented with the same choice: Will God rule over them through His Spirit?

They choose Satan instead of the Holy Spirit.

They reject God as their Ruler.

And the suffering continues.

The Holy Spirit continues choosing Vessels and remains upon the earth, trying to guide humanity. Yet His Vessels are oppressed, rejected, and fought against, while suffering increases until the earth becomes engulfed in darkness and ignorance of God.

The Qur’an repeatedly calls the reader to remember the nations of the past that rejected the Holy Spirit, chose to obey Satan, and were ultimately destroyed by the works of their own hands.

Then we come to the time of Moses. God chooses Moses as His mouthpiece and chooses a Vicegerent for him: Aaron.

“Then the LORD said to Moses, your brother Aaron will be your prophet.’” ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.’”— Exodus 7:2

Here we see the story of Adam repeating itself all over again.

Moses is now as God to the people and stands against the tyrant Pharaoh, who is the likeness of Satan in that time. Moses appoints Aaron as his Vicegerent on the earth and commands the people to obey him.

Once again, God places a Vicegerent upon the earth.

Once again, humanity is commanded to obey him. And once again, he is rejected.

Pharaoh rejects Moses and Aaron and fights against them. Then the people of Israel themselves follow in Satan’s footsteps. They reject the Vicegerent Aaron, turn toward the Samiri and the Golden Calf, and abuse and oppress Aaron just as Satan and his children rejected and oppressed the chosen Vessels from the beginning.

Different people.

Different age.

The same test.

And because the Holy Spirit is rejected, the suffering continues.

Fast forward to the time of Samuel.

Samuel is now the Spokesperson of God, while the Holy Spirit dwells with the Israelites in the Ark of the Covenant. The people of Israel come to Samuel and demand a human King because they want to be like the disbelieving nations around them.

The Holy Spirit tells Samuel:

“Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”— 1 Samuel 8:7

The Spirit of the LORD tells the Israelites that He will give them the king they are asking for, but He warns them that this king will eventually become a tyrant. He will take from them, rule over them, and increase their misery until their cries rise up to God.

Still, they insist.

They choose human rulership over the rulership of God.

Yet because God is Merciful, He still chooses the King for them. He gives the King of Israel a soul and strengthens him with His Spirit as long as that King obeys His Voice. But the pattern repeats, and God’s warning comes to pass. The King disobeys the Holy Spirit and becomes a tyrant. The Holy Spirit eventually leaves the nation, and the people are captured, oppressed, enslaved, and exiled. Their misery and suffering increase because of their choices. But God, being Merciful, does not abandon humanity. He gives them the same test again.

In the time of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus comes as the Vessel of the Holy Spirit and establishes a small Kingdom of followers. Most people reject him, following the same pattern of Satan, while some accept him as their God and Savior.

But accepting Jesus is not the end of the test.

God presents His followers with the same test that humanity has faced since Adam. He appoints a Vicegerent: Simon Peter.

He commands the disciples and believers to obey His Vicegerent. You can guess what happens next. The followers again reject the Holy Spirit in Simon Peter and instead follow the Pharisee Paul and other false prophets. The enemies of God and the Holy Spirit spread around the world, oppressing and enslaving the world population. And the suffering continues. Then we come to the time of Mohammed.

Mohammed establishes his prophethood and a small kingdom. The majority of the people on the earth reject Mohammed as the Prophet of God, while a small group chooses to believe in him and follow him. But once again, accepting the Prophet is not the final test. God chooses a Vicegerent on the earth: Ali ibn Abi Talib. The small group of followers and believers is presented with the same command humanity has heard throughout history:

Obey My Vicegerent. Obey Ali.

And again, the people failed the test. They followed in the footsteps of Satan. The suffering increased, and violence came to dominate the world. Ali then appoints his Vicegerent, Imam Al-Hassan. The line of Vicegerents continues. Imam Al-Hassan appoints his successor and is killed. His successor appoints his Vicegerent, Imam Al-Hussein, who is also killed.

Generation after generation, the Vessels of the Holy Spirit are rejected, oppressed, and killed. The pattern continues until the 12th Imam, Mohammed ibn Hassan Al-Askari, disappears from the eyes of the people. He continues ruling behind the scenes and sending Messengers, who are then faced with the same rejection.

Over and over again, humanity is given the same test.

Over and over again, humanity fails it.

And the suffering in the world becomes greater and greater.

Wars.

Disasters.

Enslavement.

Oppression.

Ignorance.

Division.

After seeing this pattern throughout history, it becomes increasingly difficult to blame God for the suffering in this world. Now we can finally return to the original question. Why does God test us with suffering?

The Truth is that suffering is a test, but the suffering itself is not the test. The test is obeying the Holy Spirit.

For 10,000 years, humanity has been rejecting the Holy Spirit and failing one simple test.

Adam was rejected.

Abel was rejected.

Aaron was rejected.

Samuel was rejected. Simon Peter was rejected.

Ali was rejected.

The Imams were rejected.

In their rejection, they were actually rejecting God.

Different people.

Different religions.

Different nations.

Different centuries.

The same test.

All the lives lost and all the suffering humanity has endured are the consequences of repeatedly failing that one simple test.

So perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking: “Why does God make us suffer?” We should ask: “Why does humanity keep rejecting the One who can end its suffering?”

The heavy, bitter truth is that if humanity had chosen to obey the Holy Spirit in His chosen Vessel, we would not be living in the world we see today. We would not live under endless wars, oppression, poverty, greed, division, exploitation, and violence. We would be living in bliss and peace.

God does not like suffering. He never put you on the earth to suffer. At the same time, God is not a tyrant. He created His creation with free will: the freedom to choose whether to obey Him and love Him. Otherwise, He would not be Just.

God will not force you to love Him. But you are not free from the consequences of your choices. The suffering that follows does not have to be a punishment sent directly by God; rather, it arises naturally from humanity’s refusal to trust Him to rule.

Humanity chooses greed, and poverty follows.

Humanity chooses division, and war follows.

Humanity chooses power over justice, and oppression follows.

Humanity rejects God's ruler and chooses rulers according to its own desires, and tyranny

follows.

Then humanity looks toward Heaven and asks God why He allows suffering. But God has been

sending the answer from the beginning: Obey My Spirit.

And despite humanity failing this test again and again, all hope is not lost. God is Merciful. He has given humanity yet another opportunity to repair what generations before us have broken. He has again chosen a Vessel. He sent the Mahdi Abdullah Hashem and set up His Kingdom and Banner, upon which it is written: “Allegiance is to God.”

And now the choice that has faced humanity from the beginning stands before us again. You are not tested on whether you believe God exists. The test is not simply whether you pray or call yourself a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or believer. Humanity has claimed to believe in God many times before while simultaneously rejecting His authority.

The real test has always been the same: Will you obey the Holy Spirit in the Vessel God chooses?

That was Satan’s test. It was the test of Cain, Pharaoh, the Israelites, the followers of Jesus,

and the followers of Mohammed. And it is our test today.

For thousands of years, humanity has made the same choice. And for thousands of years, humanity has suffered the consequences.

It is time to make a different choice - the better choice that will stop the suffering. Choose God.

Pledge allegiance to God.

Obey His Spirit.

Together, we can return this world to the Paradise God always intended for us to live in.