Why Did the Sea Lion Have to Suffer?
- Kelly Venturo
- Jan 31
- 5 min read
We found him huddled in a hollow between the boulders. We saw the fear in his face as he looked up at us with his big round eyes. And we saw the cruel, barnacle-encrusted rope around his neck. The rope was old and crusty. It looked like it had been there for a long time. It was so tight that it was digging into the poor animal’s skin. There was a deep cut all around his little neck.
He was a sea lion. A little baby sea lion all alone in the rocks on the shore of the Oregon Coast. It looked like the rope had been tangled around his neck when he was very young. As he grew up and got bigger, the rope began to dig into his neck. Now he was hurt and sick. When the tide came in, he wouldn’t be able to swim away.
We wondered where the little sea lion’s parents were. Maybe they were dead. Maybe they had left him when he got hurt. In any case, as we looked into the pup’s big, sad, watery eyes, we knew he would never survive without help.
The sea lion baby was afraid of us. He thought we were predators come to eat him up. He struggled out of his little hollow. He fought his way over the sharp rocks, trying to get away from us. But he couldn’t get very far.
As we watched the poor creature struggle, we thought about how sad it was that such a cute little animal had to suffer. Why? Didn’t God care?
Have you ever asked yourself that same question? We often see people and animals suffering. Predators eat other animals. We see animals dead on the side of the road. People and animals get sick. Have you ever seen these things and wondered why it must be this way? Have you ever wondered whether God even cares?
We ask ourselves these questions because seeing all that suffering hurts us. It hurts us because we know deep down inside that this is not the way it should be. Suffering is not normal. Death is not a natural part of life. Because that’s not the way God created it to be. God created a world where everything was good. There was no pain or death or predators. There was no suffering. That’s the way the earth is supposed to be.
So what happened? What went wrong? Well, everything changed when the devil came to the first two people God ever created and told them to disobey God. Those two people listened to him, and they disobeyed God—that is called sin. God’s good world now had evil in it. Because of this sin, God had to curse the world. Now there would be death and predators and pain. And everyone born into the world since then is a sinner, and disobeys God. Everyone in the world deserves to die.
But that’s not the end of the story. Because God does care. The Bible says that God cares even about the tiniest sparrow. God cares about injured baby sea lions. But so much more than that, God cares about people. God cares about you! And even so long ago, at the beginning of time when those first two people sinned and God cursed the evil world, God had a plan. He wasn’t going to leave us to live our evil lives and suffer and die. God promised that He would make a new earth, just like the first one before the curse. This new earth will be only good. There will be no death or pain or suffering. There will be no evil. Listen to what God says about this new earth in the Bible:
“ ‘The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 65:25).
God’s new earth will be only good. The only people that God will allow into His perfect earth are people that are perfectly good.
But . . . do you see the problem? I told you a little while ago that everyone born into this world is a sinner and disobeys God. Because of this, everyone deserves to die and suffer in Hell. No one can come to God’s new, perfect, and good earth!
But remember what else I told you. God loves you and cares about you. So He sent Someone to help. At just the right time, God became a man—Jesus—and came down to earth. He came down to live in our world of suffering. And He died on a cross to take on Himself the punishment that we deserve. He died instead of us! He was buried but came alive again and went back up to Heaven. Because Jesus took your punishment, God can forgive your sin and clean it away from you. If you ask God to take away your sin, He will! You must turn from your sin and trust Him to do this.
Anyone who turns from their sin and trusts in Jesus will live one day in God’s new perfect earth. Anyone can come. Anyone can be saved. No one has to die. That’s how much God loves us.
Since we knew God cares about baby sea lions, we knew we couldn’t just leave our little injured friend there to suffer. Mom did some research on her phone, and Dad called a place where the Internet said there were people who helped sea lions and other ocean mammals.
The people on the phone asked where the injured sea lion was, and Dad gave them our coordinates. Coordinates are numbers that people use for navigation. With two coordinates, a person can pinpoint the exact location of something or someone. With our coordinates, the sea lion rescuers would know exactly where on the beach the sea lion baby was.
When we came back later to check on the sea lion, the rope was gone. The sea lion baby was free! Just like that sea lion pup was free from his rope, you can be free from your sin. Next time you see a person or an animal suffering, think about what God has done for you so that you can have hope—God has made a way for us to one day live in a world where there is no suffering.
Turn from your sin and trust in Jesus today, if you haven’t already. Then make sure you tell the suffering people around you what God has done for them so that they too can be free and have hope!
Photos by Jenny Venturo
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission. All rights reserved.
