Today is launch day for God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good. Keith Krell (my co-author) and I have been eagerly awaiting this day so we can share this book with you. (The photo is of students in my Romans class celebrating the release of this brand new book!)
Here is a small taste of what you will feast on in this book:
Ten out of a Thousand Reasons
Why does God allow his children to suffer? What are God’s forward-looking purposes in allowing his children to struggle, grieve, and experience pain of various kinds?
Christians usually search for one positive outcome connected to one particular suffering to account for why God allowed it. Even after a period of suffering, it is not uncommon to hear Christians latch onto a single reason as an explanation, such as: “My child came back to the Lord” or “I was protected from making a big mistake.”
But looking for a single explanation for a particular instance of suffering is misguided because God’s purposes are manifold and multifaceted. God is so great and his purposes so vast that for us to reduce the experience of a heart-wrenching event to a single explanation—or even two or three—risks dishonoring God’s greatness.
God has a thousand reasons for allowing us to suffer! We often use the number one thousand to describe this, even though we know there could be many more reasons, because it is not only a large number but also a number we can sort of wrap our minds around.
Just think about the extent of all God’s possible purposes:
- for you in the present
- for you in the future
- for the people around you—your family, your friends, your unbelieving neighbors
- for your church
- for your unborn children or grandchildren
- for something that God wants to shift in world history
- for the battle that is being waged in the heavenly realm between angels and demons that you cannot see
- for something related to God’s preparations for the new heavens and the new earth
- for God’s glory in myriad ways that you cannot see
All of these—and so many more!—are possible, even likely, purposes for any suffering you or someone close to you might face. God will probably only show you one—or maybe two or three—if he decides to show you any at all. And if he does, in most cases, it will come after the fact, not while you are suffering.
It would be hard to exaggerate how helpful it has been to us to remember that God has athousand purposes for permitting suffering! This keeps us from grasping for simplistic explanations that don’t honor the vastness of our glorious Lord.
But it’s one thing to say that we don’t know God’s purposes comprehensively; it’s quite another to say that we don’t know anything about the kinds of things God does through our suffering. On the contrary, there are general purposes for which God allows his children to suffer. God has revealed some of these to us in his word, and, most particularly, in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We don’t have to know that a given purpose is directly tied to a given experience of suffering to receive spiritual help from these general purposes. These are the types of things God commonly purposes when he allows his children to suffer.
In this book, we draw out ten explicitly stated reasons why God allows his people, his precious children, to suffer—all drawn from 2 Corinthians. Because of the kinds of purposes stated in this letter and the pattern that emerges in their sequence, we believe that these should be viewed as common purposes for why God might allow his children to suffer. If we can lean into these purposes—knowing that God is probably purposing some of these as he permits our current sufferings—we will gain strength and confidence to trust God even during our darkest days.
As we start our journey into this important and profound topic, let us pray for you:
Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray for your precious children who are reading right now. We know that they are probably facing personal suffering—or are close to someone who is—or else they wouldn’t have picked up this book. We hurt with the thought that our brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering. We grieve with them and long for your abundant grace to be obvious to them as they experience such pain or loss. We believe that the words that follow could profoundly help them, so we ask you, in the name of Jesus, to do a deep work of grace as they read. Reform their hearts, renew their perspectives, refresh their souls, and reinvigorate their faith. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Does Why Mean?
1. Be Prepared to Strengthen Others Who Suffer (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
2. Trust in God Who Raises the Dead (2 Corinthians 1:8-11)
3. Display Jesus, Not Ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)
4. Glorify God for His Abundant Grace (2 Corinthians 4:15)
5. Yearn for the Future (2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10)
6. Repent When Repentance is Needed (2 Corinthians 7:8-10)
7. Support Each Other During Times of Hardship (2 Corinthians 8:13-15)
8. Experience God’s Provision (2 Corinthians 9:8-11)
9. Counteract Conceit (2 Corinthians 12:7)
10. Welcome Weakness for Spiritual Strength (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)
Appendix: More Purposes
Would you like to read this book? You can purchase it HERE or HERE. Share it with a hurting friend or read it to prepare for suffering you might face in the future. Be sure to leave a review—it will really help us get the word out.
Kindle Afresh 