According to Matthew 5:22,29-30 and Luke 12:4-5, the suffering in our earthly bodies is small compared to the fire of hell. Therefore God’s feelings of mercy (“compassions”) may at times move Him even to use earthly pain to try to keep us from far greater eternal pain.
God does not have to make up special pain just for us. In this world, which has left God, pain is already with us! But God can sometimes use that pain to help us. When a doctor cuts into the body to remove a diseased part, does this mean that the doctor is uncaring and unwise? Just the opposite is true. He cuts because he cares and wishes to heal. He knows that the pain of this cut is far better than the suffering and death of the spreading disease.
In the same way, God sends “judgments” even before the final judgment. Is this because He is uncaring? It is because He cares so much! As the prophet Isaiah said,
When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants [people] of the world learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9b).
In fact, it can be said that the more God cares, the more He corrects us.
The Lord disciplines the one he loves… [Our fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness (Hebrews 12:6,10).
Life’s trials tend to make unbelievers more bitter and hard-hearted. But believers keep trusting in the great truth that “His love endures forever” (Psalm 136). Therefore they let themselves be “trained” by the pain of correction. In this way they reap the “harvest of righteousness and peace” (Hebrews 12:11).