what I'm reading: 25 writers on suffering

Be still my soul is another fantastic collection of reflections on suffering by Nancy Guthrie (I've also written about Holding on to hope and Hearing Jesus speak into your sorrow).

What I love about these books is the way you can read just a short section and go away encouraged. This is important when you're struggling and can't face a long, theologically dense book.

This time Nancy Guthrie has done the collecting rather than the writing. Be still my soul includes short reflections by 25 writers, from Martin Luther to Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Corrie ten Boom.

So far, my favourite reflection is by Os Guiness. (How I love his books! He deserves to be more widely read.) He understands anguish, and he knows the only ground for hope. I'll let the master wordsmith speak for himself.

Suffering is the most acute trial that faith can face, and the questions it raises are the sharpest, the most insistent, and the most damaging that faith will meet.

Can faith bear the pain and still trust God, suspending judgment and resting in the knowledge that God is there, God is good, and God knows best? Or will the pain be so great that only meaning will make it endurable so that reason must be pressed further and further and judgments must be made?

To suffer is one thing, to suffer without meaning is another, but to suffer and choose not to press for any meaning is worst of all. Yet that is the suicidal submission that faith’s suspension of judgment seems to involve.

We suffer, we look up, we cry out, we pray, we tear our hearts out, but there is no answer. The heavens are brass, the gates are locked, the phone is busy, and in the ringing nothingness of silence we wonder if God was ever there.

If the Christian’s faith is to be itself and let God be God at such times, it must suspend judgment and say, “Father, I do not understand you, but I trust you.”

The test of suffering reveals whether our "knowing why" is an irreducible bedrock conviction grounded in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, or whether our faith is resting to any degree on what is not bedrock but sand.

We do not know why, but we know why we trust God who knows why.

For the Christian, the cry of Jesus, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" will always have depths of meaning that the human mind can never fathom. But one thing at least it means. None of us can sink so low that God has not gone lower still.

When we see Jesus on the cross we can come to trust God with an unutterable trust that never for a moment considers he will not stand by us in our sufferings.

what I'm reading: the difference between cause and purpose in the "why?" of suffering

I finished Nancy Guthrie's Holding on to hope a few weeks ago; a book written  after the loss of a daughter while facing the loss of a son.

Now I'm reading Hearing Jesus speak into your sorrow. Written 10 years later, it's perhaps a little less raw and a little more mature, but equally helpful.

Once again, I'd highly recommend this book as suitable to give to someone who's suffering. It's wise, biblical and comforting, a collection of reflections that can be read during your devotions.

So far, chapter 6 - "I have a purpose in your pain" - has been the most helpful chapter, for 4 reasons:

• it has a clear, biblical explanation of God's sovereignty in suffering (one of the best I've read)
• it explains why suffering is never punishment for a Christian's sin (I was surprised to find how common and painful the thoughts "I deserve this" and "I did something to cause this" are when you suffer)
• it lists three truths about God that got Nancy through her suffering (very familiar ones to me)
• it reframes the question "Why?" (in terms of purpose rather than cause).

It's the last one that stood out for me. Nancy Guthrie says,

Why? is the questions that seems to haunt most people who suffer deeply. In fact, many of us get stuck there. Until we get an acceptable answer to this question, we can't move forward.

In asking why, I think we really have two questions. We want to know what caused the suffering, as well as what purpose there is in it. We want to know what or who is responsible and then figure out if there was any good reason for it. ...

Honestly, I've come to think that looking for a specific answer to the question Why? is mostly an unsatisfying quest.

What we really are in search of is not an explanation but a sense of meaning. We want to know that there is some meaning and purpose in our losses - that they are not random or worthless.

God wants us to stop being stuck on figuring out the cause of our suffering so we can fulfill the purpose he has in our suffering.

What allows us as God's children to endure it is that while it's painful, we're confident it's purposeful. Never punitive. Never random. Never too harsh. Always out of love.

And then she outlines some of God's purpose in our suffering:

What's the purpose? God's desire is that "afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way" (Hebrews 12:11).

God is at work cutting away the dead places and destructive patterns in our lives so we can flourish and grow.

His purpose for your suffering and my suffering is that in the midst of it, we would put the work of God in our lives on display for the world to see.

Of course, there is still much that we won't understand in this life:

Sometimes God, in his goodness, draws back the curtain and shows us; we can see how he is using our loss in our lives or in the lives of those around us.

Other times we have to wait. Certainly we can never expect to see the complete purposes of God in this life.

That is where faith is required -

faith that God is working out all things for the good of those who love him,

faith that the day will come when what we can't see now will become clear,

faith that he will give us the grace we need to put his glory on display for the world to see.

what I'm reading: in sickness, what should I pray?

Because I believe his plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don't want to try to change God's mind—his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don't want to change God's timing—his timing is perfect. I want the grace to accept his timing. I don't want to change God's plan—his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit.

Nancie and David Guthrie lost two babies to Zellweger syndrome, a rare genetic disease. Their second child Hope only lived for six months, and it wasn't an easy life: "These babies are blind, probably deaf, unable to suck, coo, or respond in any intentional way".

Knowing that there was a one in four chance that any other child would have the disease, David underwent a vasectomy; but Nancy became pregnant, and prenatal testing showed that this baby would also die. They lost Gabriel at six months.

You can imagine that they were encouraged to pray for healing. I'm sure they did, and rightly so. But Nancy says - and I think she's right - that there are bigger and better things to pray for.

Often, I see the body of Christ put so much into pursuing God for healing. With great boldness and passion and persistence, we cry out to God, begging for physical healing. And in these prayers, there is often a tiny P.S. added at the end where we say, 'If it be your will.'

But shouldn't we switch that around?

Shouldn't we cry out to God with boldness and passion and persistence in a prayer that says, "God, would you please accomplish your will? Would you give me a willing heart to embrace your plan and your purpose? Would you mold me into a vessel that you can use to accomplish what you have in mind?" And then, perhaps, we could add a tiny P.S. that says, "and if that includes, healing, we will be grateful."

Isn't real faith revealed more through pursuing God and what He wants than by pursuing what I want?

We often hear people talk about the "victorious Christian life." But isn't the life of a Christian really more about bending the knee, humbling ourselves, and taking up a cross?

I don't know what the cross will look like for you. I just know it will require a death to your desires and your dreams to carry it. And it won't be easy.

But I also know that as you die to yourself. God's life will take root and grow within you.

Holding on to Hope 78-81.

what I'm reading: the unspoken agreement

Right in the middle of her sorrow, having lost one child and knowing she was about to lose another, Nancy Guthrie wrote Holding On To Hope, a collection of short devotional reflections on the book of Job.

I've been reading it every morning after I read the Bible and pray. It's so helpful that I wish I'd had it twelve months ago - but all in God's good timing! It's a great book to give to someone who's suffering.

One of the strangest things about "big" suffering is that it makes you feel like you ought to be exempt from the "small" things. It was good to read this and know I'm not alone. (Nancy has just received a phone call that her son broke his front tooth:)

I took a deep breath and couldn't say anything for a minute. I guess it hit me in the area of my greatest fear - that this wouldn't be our only loss.

That night, as David and I talked about the day, we realized that we had both had an unspoken agreement with God that went something like this: "Fine. We will accept losing Hope and all that that brings. But we don't lose Matt. We don't lose each other. No car accidents. No cancer. No financial collapse. This is it!"

But as we voiced our deepest feelings and fears out loud, we realized that we had to let go of those things too. We needed to trust God with everything we had. We had to open ourselves and say, God, it is all yours to do with as you will! 

Some days I wonder if the letting go is ever going to stop. ...

We tend to think the money in our bank accounts and the possessions we have are ours—that we've earned them. That we deserve them. But the truth is, everything we have is a gift.

Do you think you "deserve" a certain lifestyle, a handsome and loving husband, or beautiful wife and healthy, easy-to-manage children? A high-paying, fulfilling career? What are you holding on to so tightly that you would blame God if he took it away tomorrow? ...

Would you welcome God to have his way with your possessions, your position, the people you love? Would you accept his promise that he can be enough?

Holding on to Hope 21-24 (see the excerpt here)

what I'm reading: a book to give someone while they are suffering

There are lots of good books to read to prepare you for suffering (Don Carson's How Long O Lord is the best).

There are a few good books to read while you're suffering (Joni Eareckson's When God Weeps is excellent, but it might have to wait till you can see things more clearly).

Here's that rare thing - a book I'd gladly give to someone deep in suffering, for that moment when they can begin to read again: Nancy Guthrie's Holding On To Hope.

It's devotional, based on the book of Job. It's written out of great pain (the loss of a baby, and the coming loss of another). The readings are short and clear. Each explores one idea - "Loss", "Despair", "Tears" - with understanding and biblical wisdom.

I'm reading it at the moment. As I read, I find myself going, "You too!", about specific and unexpected aspects of suffering. Then I read on and find an answer from God's word that speaks to my need, and an exhortation to cling to faith and hope.

Here's one bit that jumped off the page.

Sometimes what God has allowed into our lives is so bitter that we're hurt and angry and don't even want to talk to him about it.

But where does that leave us?

On our own. No resources, no truth to dispel the despair, no hope.

The truth is, there is no comfort to be found away from God; at least, there is no lasting, deep, satisfying comfort. Revenge, ritual, retreat - they don't bring any lasting relief from the pain.

Only the truth of God's Word, the tenderness of his welcome, the touch of his healing presence bring the kind of comfort we crave. Only his promises of purpose in this life and perfection in the life to come offer us any kind of real hope to hold on to.

Do you find yourself wanting to leave the faith you've claimed now that it has been put to the test of adversity? So where will you go? In your discouragement, where will you find the comfort you so desperately crave? ...

Even though we don't understand, and it is so dark we cannot see to take a step forward, we can choose to hang on, to keep trusting, to keep believing God's Word.

 "So where will you go?"

Nowhere else but here.


Nancy Guthrie Holding On To Hope 46-47 (my emphasis).