Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

One of the books I read for our series at Revolution on Habakkuk called Waiting on God (http://www.tucsonrevolution.com/waiting-on-god/) was Tim Keller’s book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. It is by far the most helpful and most thorough book on the topic of pain and suffering and where God is when life hurts the most. To give you an idea, when I read a book I would say I average highlighting anywhere from 25 – 40 things. In this book, I highlighted 160 passages. Keller starts off the book by telling us why it matters so much, "Suffering is everywhere, unavoidable, and its scope often overwhelms. If you spend one hour reading this book, more than five children throughout the world will have died from abuse and violence during that time.3 If you give the entire day to reading, more than one hundred children will have died violently. But this is, of course, only one of innumerable forms and modes of suffering. Thousands die from traffic accidents or cancer every hour, and hundreds of thousands learn that their loved ones are suddenly gone. That is comparable to the population of a small city being swept away every day, leaving families and friends devastated in the wake. When enormous numbers of deaths happen in one massive event—such as the 1970 Bhola cyclone in Bangladesh, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, or the 2010 Haiti earthquake—each of which killed 300,000 or more at once—it makes headlines around the world and everyone reels from the devastation. But statistics are misleading. Such historic disasters do not really change the suffering rate. Tens of thousands of people die every day in unexpected tragedies, and hundreds of thousands around them are crushed by grief and shock. The majority of them trigger no headlines because pain and misery is the norm in this world. We are always looking to make some sort of sense out of murder in order to keep it safely at bay: I do not fit the description; I do not live in that town; I would never have gone to that place, known that person. But what happens when there is no description, no place, nobody? Where do we go to find our peace of mind? . . . The fact is, staving off our own death is one of our favorite national pastimes. Whether it’s exercise, checking our cholesterol or having a mammogram, we are always hedging against mortality. Find out what the profile is, and identify the ways in which you do not fit it. No amount of money, power, and planning can prevent bereavement, dire illness, relationship betrayal, financial disaster, or a host of other troubles from entering your life. Human life is fatally fragile and subject to forces beyond our power to manage. Life is tragic." With that in mind, here 13 things I learned or was reminded of in this book that I hope will be of encouragement for you: When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were. At the heart of why people disbelieve and believe in God, of why people decline and grow in character, of how God becomes less real and more real to us—is suffering. The great theme of the Bible itself is how God brings fullness of joy not just despite but through suffering, just as Jesus saved us not in spite of but because of what he endured on the cross. the central image of suffering as a fiery furnace. This biblical metaphor is a rich one. Fire is, of course, a well-known image for torment and pain. The Bible calls trials and troubles “walking through fire” (Isa 43:2) or a “fiery ordeal” (1 Pet 4:12). But it also likens suffering to a fiery furnace (1 Pet 1:6–7). The biblical understanding of a furnace is more what we would call a “forge.” Anything with that degree of heat is, of course, a very dangerous and powerful thing. However, if used properly, it does not destroy. Things put into the furnace properly can be shaped, refined, purified, and even beautified. This is a remarkable view of suffering, that if faced and endured with faith, it can in the end only make us better, stronger, and more filled with greatness and joy. Suffering, then, actually can use evil against itself. It can thwart the destructive purposes of evil and bring light and life out of darkness and death. Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity. Christians don’t face adversity by stoically decreasing our love for the people and things of this world so much as by increasing our love and joy in God. Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story. Suffering is the result of our turn away from God, and therefore it was the way through which God himself in Jesus Christ came and rescued us for himself. And now it is how we suffer that comprises one of the main ways we become great and Christ-like, holy and happy, and a crucial way we show the world the love and glory of our Savior. If you have a God infinite and powerful enough for you to be angry at for allowing evil, then you must at the same time have a God infinite enough to have sufficient reasons for allowing that evil. God is sovereign over suffering and yet, in teaching unique to the Christian faith among the major religions, God also made himself vulnerable and subject to suffering. The other side of the sovereignty of God is the suffering of God himself. Suffering is painful “at the time” but later yields a harvest. It is one thing to believe in God but it is quite another thing to trust God. If you believe in Jesus and you rest in him, then suffering will relate to your character like fire relates to gold. We should not assume that if we are trusting in God we won’t weep, or feel anger, or feel hopeless. The way you live now is completely controlled by what you believe about your future. If you are walking through a difficult season or are struggling to trust God as you look at the pain in our world, this is the one book I’d recommend you read.

***** From such a gloomy and difficult topic as pain and suffering comes a beautiful, even glorious book. This book is not mainly for theologians and seminarians (although they will appreciate it too) but for laypeople and average Christian people--people like me. I am an ordinary Christian who has never really understood or made full sense of the role that pain and suffering was intended to make in my life. This book goes beyond this topic and for me gave meaning to my entire Christian experience in a way that no other book ever has. I found my reading experience to not be grim and boring (as I expected with such a topic) but intriguing and eventually fascinating because everything I have been taught as a Christian came together and began to make sense. I initially purchased it because I am going through an intensely painful illness and needed some encouragement. This book provided it. It is not light reading, but it is important and meaningful reading; thus I would not recommend it for someone who is grieving so deeply that they cannot focus enough to handle a deep and intense book. But I would recommend it for those who love them. So much of what the Bible says about suffering is against our Western culture's admonitions and we don't even realize it. As Christians, we have even adopted a lot of these cultural beliefs. This book will pull you back into a Biblical worldview and remind you of what you know to be true. The book is divided into three parts. The first part of the book gives a background on pain and suffering, a general history of how different cultures--including our culture--views suffering. There is some philosophy in this section, and I found it a tad hard to get through. Persist, reader, as it is worth it! The first part addresses different theodicies (explanations for the problem of evil and suffering) in a systematic and logical way. The second part of the book discusses what the Bible says about suffering and how it teaches us to address it. I found this part very rich--I kept wanting to stop and ponder what I was reading. The last part deals with practical information and Biblical ways of coping with evil, suffering, and pain. It discusses how to walk with God through suffering and how to know His presence when things are hard. I purchased this book for my Kindle so that I could read it soon after it came out. I ended up buying two hardback copies--one for myself and one as a gift for someone who has turned away from God because of suffering. My friend is still a Christian but has lost the intimacy with God he used to experience; this book will provide the healing he needs, of this I am certain. I recommend this book for every Christian to read NOW in order to be prepared for suffering and remain faithful. I also recommend it for Christian readers who have loved ones dealing with painful circumstances. I recommend it for non-believers who want to understand why Christians have hope and comfort. To quote from the book: "Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity." So true. Nothing is more important! I recommend this book for its life-changing perspective on faith. The author defines an orthodox, Biblical view of pain, suffering, and hard times; I found sincere relief to finally, finally understand. Highest recommendation possible. *****

I have read several Keller books and there are a few that stand out as extremely well organized and thought out, as well as very nicely written. I would have to say that this is one of them. Suffering has always been a part of human experience and societies and cultures throughout history have attempted to come to terms with it, to find meaning for and in suffering or to simply reject it as something that must be fought and resisted tooth and nail. One of the interesting contributions of this book is that Keller summarizes nicely different historical and societal takes on suffering. One of the unexpected conclusions is that perhaps our secular, 21st century western world is ill equipped to deal with this issue. Drawing on both secular (Luc Ferry), Christian (Charles Taylor) or otherwise religious writers, Keller draws out nicely several different underlying premises that current thought on suffering rest on. In fact, there is much to learn not only on suffering, but on the general world view regarding the meaning of life in the West in present times. Keller also does a masterful job in presenting a Christian perspective on suffering. This is a crucial part of Keller's work because there is a strong tendency in Christian circles to view suffering in different ways that, Keller argues, are in and of themselves not Christian, but simply a transformation of other perspectives, that eventually undermine hope. By relying very nicely on places in Scripture where there are examples of suffering, including a central accent on the meaning of Christ's profound experience of suffering, Keller states some important truths: Christians are most able to feel the pain of suffering, most equipped to understand that suffering was not part of the original plan, most able to enter into suffering. But, also, they have the greatest hope, and cannot be destroyed by suffering. It is not and can never be what defines them, whether they are victims, or responsible for their situation. The Christian hope has trumped and will ultimately trump, all consequences of suffering. There is much Lewis, much Tolkien, old writers, new writers, the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, pastors and philosophers, scientists and journalists. All kinds of people are cited and given thought to, testimony to Keller's uncanny ability to speak to people's experience and cultural context. I have already started giving this book away to friends. I am impressed by Keller's writing in a couple of ways: He is able to describe profound Christian truths in extremely pertinent ways, speaking clearly to the ambiant culture. I have met and read few that do this well. Second, there is definitely the feeling that Keller treats his readers as intelligent, thoughtful individuals, who have also given reflexion to the issues he raises. Finally, you get the impression that Keller's long experience as a thoughtful pastor comes through in his work. I cannot recommend this book enough, not only for those who want to understanding suffering, but also for those who want to get a clearer picture of hope and how it might be becoming a rare commodity.

A little repetitive, one or two of the testimonies are questionable, some doctrinal assumptions need to be clarified, but in general a helpful book worth reading.

Writing this review after a month of the purchase, packaging was very good and the condition of the book is good too. May God be with you as you read this in your pain and suffering.

Thank you Timothy Keller for an outstanding book that has put a different perspective on my life. “ If you love anything more than God, you are always going to be in anxiety about it.”.

Ein wunderbar tiefes Buch, philosophisch und sehr ehrlich,.. zutiefst christlich, aber nicht *fromm". Tiefe Denker finden ehrliche Antworten auf tiefste Fragen... leidende Christen Trost und Ermutigung. Gott ist viel mehr... ER hat uns erschaffen, den Intellekt gegeben, sollte Er nicht auf unsere Fragen echte Antworten geben? Das Leiden ist vorab für Christen ein Problem, denn sie glauben an den guten allmächtigen Gott...! Sehr zu empfehlen, lernt denken, gibt aber auch tiefste Ermutigung und Trost!