As the pandemic began to spread and large numbers of people began to die, it again raised many questions. Was God going to protect His children from this deadly pestilence? Were all those who died unbelievers? Were Christians who died from COVID without sufficient faith or with unconfessed sin? Did all who prayed for their healing lack faith? The practical answer to all these questions is no. Yet it is very difficult or actually impossible for us to understand God fully in relation to such questions.
If one were to try to understand the answers to such questions before one would believe in God, that is highly unlikely. But what if we begin with trust in God, knowing that He has loved us so much that in order to save us from perishing, He sacrificed His Son Jesus for us? If we have personally experienced this salvation, it would be difficult for us to imagine that God is unjust, unfair or undependable. The answer that would satisfy us is that God always does right, even when we can't understand why He does things. That is, in essence, what it means to walk by faith.
Those who are personally convinced about the goodness of the Lord through their experience of undeserved kindness and mercy towards them will find it easier to believe that there must be a very good reason in God's mind why He lets one man live while He takes away another. In the early days of the church, God allowed King Herod to kill James, one of the three apostles close to Jesus, and sent an angel to miraculously save Peter. Can we explain why? We can add two more pieces to the puzzle–this Peter had recently disowned Jesus, and it goes against common sense to waste all the special training James had received. But that did not shake John, the brother of James, from following Jesus. John knew Jesus loved him, and also that he loved Jesus.
Many people are praying for protection from the infection, and many others are praying for healing, without any doubt in their minds that God is able to do anything. Yet many of these prayers are not answered. Does it mean that God cannot be trusted? For the people who somehow want to convince themselves that there is no God, this provides a good reason. But nobody can explain away the fact that this is the same God who gave His only Son because He wanted to save the world from sin (1Jn.2:2). This is the fact that has changed millions of hopeless sinners in very miraculous ways over the centuries after Jesus died, who saw their sinfulness and saw no other way to be saved except through Jesus. Such people are so convinced about the love God has for them that they are willing to give up everything including their lives in order to serve this God.
If you pose questions to them about suffering and God's love, not many would be able to give apologetic answers. They may admit that they don't have all the answers. But they can answer that they know God only because Jesus died for them. That is the way of faith.