Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Politics has been in the news, and it’s vital that we pay attention to the world where God has put us and pray for those in authority (1 Tim­othy 2:1-2).  But it would be a great mistake to think our life of faith as followers of Jesus mostly has to do with how we engage with the shifting political sands of our increasingly secular society.

Better to give first allegiance to our eternal Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ.  And better to step back and see this life for what it is—a temporary passage as we journey home to heaven.  As we travel, we’ll encounter all kinds of ditches and ravines and rockslides.  A key test of our spiritual maturation is how we’ll handle the calamities we hit along the road.  Tim Keller’s book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, provides crucial help for this inevitable challenge.

In an interview at The Gospel Coalition, Keller says, “Most cultures—unlike our own—expect suffering as inevitable and see it as a means of strengthening and enriching us. Our secular culture, on the other hand, is perhaps the worst in history at helping its members face suffering.”

The Bible’s teaching on suffering is “profoundly realistic because it tells us suffering is inevitable.  No one escapes it.  We shouldn’t be surprised and shocked by it.  The Bible is terribly matter-of-fact about the reality that the world is filled with misery.  Yet it offers not merely a spiritual afterlife but the hope of a renewed creation, the resurrection, and a material world wiped clean of decay and suffering and death.  No other religion promises such a thing.”

And from the book:  “You don’t really know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have” (p. 5).  “Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t cer­tain that God is for you and with you” (58).  “Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story” (77).  “The best people often have ter­ri­ble lives. Job is one example, and Jesus—the ultimate ‘Job,’ the only truly, fully innocent sufferer—is another” (133).  “Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it.  He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach.  And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God” (180-81).  Read this Bible-rich book—it’s good medicine.