Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense

Top Highlights

“Weakness simply demonstrates what has been true all along: we are completely dependent on God for life and breath and everything else.” (source)

“Suffering has the power to expose what you have been trusting all along. If you lose your hope when your physical body fails, maybe your hope wasn’t really in your Savior after all. It was humbling to confess that what I thought was faith was actually self-reliance.” (source)

“I am always a bit distressed when I hear someone talking of spiritual warfare as if it’s the unusual, exotic, and weirdly dark fringe of the Christian life. The reality is that spiritual warfare is mundane, normal Christianity because our hearts are always a battleground between fear and faith, between doubt and hope, and between what is true and what is false.” (source)

“Now, here’s what happens in times of suffering. When the thing you have been trusting (whether you knew it or not) is laid to waste, you don’t suffer just the loss of that thing; you also suffer the loss of the identity and security that it provided.” (source)

“Physical suffering exposes the delusion of personal autonomy and self-sufficiency. If you and I had the kind of control that we fall into thinking we have, none of us would ever go through anything difficult. None of us would choose to be sick. None of us would choose to experience physical pain. None of us likes the prospect of being physically weak and disabled. None of us likes our lives being put on hold. Physical suffering does force you to face the reality that your life is in the hands of another. It reminds you that you are small and dependent, that whatever little bits of power and control you have can be taken away in an instant. Independence is a delusion that is quickly exposed by suffering.” (source)