NC Theologian on Suffering

Today I read a second review panning Barth Ehrman's book on suffering: God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question. I had tried to read this book, and had gotten similarly annoyed with it, because this guy obviously had very little actual experience with people who face poverty and suffering. Basically, he's decided he doesn't believe in God because if the God he wants to believe in were real, there wouldn't be suffering.

I know that there are many people wrestling with this question, and that it is a very serious question to ask - where does suffering come from, if God is really a good God? And the truth is that I don't have a good answer for why there is suffering. My answer to Ehrman would be something like: There is suffering because suffering is a part of life, just like death is. It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, any more than the fact that trees exist means that clouds do not.

A favorite quote from Proverbs comes to mind:

"[G]ive me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, "Who is the Lord?" or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God."