When I was a believer, I always thought the best answer to this is that suffering is brief & temporary when considered against eternal paradise.
Looking deeper, suffering is also necessary to allow for the gift of immortality to be a choice, and to be 'fair'-- those who cannot resist the desire to cause misery for others must be given the chance to demonstrate for everyone else why they should not be granted immortality. If God just snuffed them out at the first sign of trouble everyone would start to wonder if God was really being just. [Oh, I also didn't believe in eternal hell, just a final judgment where the 'bad guys' are all destroyed so the rest of us can actually start enjoying life without any more misery.]
You will find thousands of other quite different responses to this question because it is the most common question asked about God.
I don't really believe any of that stuff any more, but the beliefs I described brought me comfort for a long time in a dark place and I still think they make more sense than any other irrational, unprovable belief system I've looked into.
Looking deeper, suffering is also necessary to allow for the gift of immortality to be a choice, and to be 'fair'-- those who cannot resist the desire to cause misery for others must be given the chance to demonstrate for everyone else why they should not be granted immortality. If God just snuffed them out at the first sign of trouble everyone would start to wonder if God was really being just. [Oh, I also didn't believe in eternal hell, just a final judgment where the 'bad guys' are all destroyed so the rest of us can actually start enjoying life without any more misery.]
You will find thousands of other quite different responses to this question because it is the most common question asked about God.
I don't really believe any of that stuff any more, but the beliefs I described brought me comfort for a long time in a dark place and I still think they make more sense than any other irrational, unprovable belief system I've looked into.