Evil, pain, and suffering were not in God's original plan for creation. But according to the Bible, something went very wrong when human history began. Sin entered the human race when the first people, Adam and Eve, succumbed to Satan's temptation and decided that they, not God, knew what was best for their lives. What Satan offered them sounded like a good thing, but he didn't tell them the whole story. Adam and Eve were free to choose between God and Satan and they chose wrongly. Because of sin, humans threw away their relationship with God and, as a consequence, pain and suffering entered the world.
We literally tossed in our lot with the devil.
Even though our ancestors rejected God, he had another plan to free us from our bondage. People can never be reconciled to God by doing good works because of our inherited our sin nature, but God told the prophets that a Messiah would come who would take our sins and our punishments upon himself. The Messiah would clothe himself in humanity, live as a human, suffer as a human, but would not sin as a human. Though completely innocent and free from sin, the Messiah allowed himself to be tortured and killed in our place. That Messiah is Jesus Christ. He defeated sin and death and, when we trust in him, he gives us salvation as a gift.
