I was reading tonight through Lamentations and it talks about should we not suffer for sin?  God has that right to bring judgment. The context is the Babylonian captivity.

It caused me to think on things.  There were very righteous people in Israel.  Yet they suffered.  A lot.  Not because of their personal sins, but because of their national sins.

Sometimes we have suffering in our lives not because of our own sin, but because of our corporate sin as nations.  Nations make choices and we bear the fruit of those choices.  At times the suffering we experience is the direct result of those decisions.  And at other times, it may be at the point where God is bringing judgment on the land.