Required reading
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 2, Device 9.
My notes and thoughts
Device 9: 'Presenting to the soul the crosses, losses, reproaches, sorrows, and sufferings that do daily attend those that walk in the ways of holiness.' This device is the logical counterpart to Device 8. Device 8 told us unrighteousness is pleasurable and Device 9 tells us righteousness is painful. Therefore the same problem is once again encountered, do we trust our experience or the word of God as our final authority. Brooks' obviously trusts God's word as he gives many examples of godly people being blessed through suffering. Although suffering is painful, it is presented as not necessarily a bad thing: 'God's house of correction is his school of instruction.'
Remedy 5 also make the valuable point that there are more important things than the absence of suffering: 'Afflictions, they are but as a dark entry into your Father's house; they are but as a dirty lane to a royal palace.'
On the whole, this is an excellent discussion on why God allows suffering, one of the most frequent questions I come across and often one of the most poorly answered. In the future I might give this section from Brooks to someone asking about the subject and see whether they find it helpful.
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