One of the titles that I am already looking forward to purchasing is Tim Keller’s next title, which I have heard him affirm is going to be on the subject of Suffering.  This will prove to be significant, as Keller has had much to say about the intersection between the Gospel and suffering!

I have heard him preach on these subjects, been challenged by the implications of the grace-based Gospel and what we think we deserve in this life, and as the following exemplifies, been encouraged by the “suffering” context of such words!

Nancy Guthrie has edited together some 25 classic and contemporary readings on the problem of pain, with Keller’s words filling one of these chapters!

As a foretaste of this future title that I have referenced, and as an encouragement to purchase this following title, where these words form part of his chapter on this subject, read, think, meditate, and integrate these words into your life, as these are potentially and personally potent!

Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear life.  Suffering leads to life, but that seed has to fall to the ground.

That may sound nice, but how do we know it will really work?  Paul tells us how in verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 4: “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.” Because Jesus is raised from the dead, it is the very meaning of history that life comes out of death — that out of devastation comes redemption.

Then Paul gives us an example in his own life — he tells us about his “thorn in the flesh.”  What was his thorn in the flesh?  We don’t know.  What we do know is that Paul asked God to remove it over and over, and God said “no.”

Does that remind you of anyone?

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was not just facing a thorn in his flesh, but the ultimate stake through his heart and soul.  He repeatedly asked God to remove it, and God said “no.”

What God said to Jesus and to Paul, and what he says to us is, “My power always comes to perfection through weakness. My power can only explode into your life through your weakness.”

Paul says that if Jesus can uncomplainingly submit to his infinite suffering and thereby have God’s life explode into our lives and into the world, then you and I can submit to our finite suffering uncomplainingly and know the same thing will happen.   The death in us will work life in us and in others around us.   That’s our hope.

But Paul gives us even more to hope for.  He writes, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:16–17).

This is a parallel passage to what he wrote in Romans 8:18: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” When we put the two together,we see the astonishing claim Paul is making.  He’s saying that our suffering will be outweighed by future glory, and that our suffering now is actually “achieving for us” that future glory.

Marilyn McCord Adams, who teaches philosophy at Yale, has done a study of female Christian mystics of the Middle Ages. She has distilled out of their teaching some remarkable teachings about suffering.  Adams says that the Stoics said to accept suffering, the Epicureans said to avoid suffering, and the aesthetics and masochists said to embrace suffering.  But, she points out, the gospel does not accept, avoid, or embrace suffering; it engulfs suffering.

What does that mean? It all has to do with hope.

If heaven is our hope, then heaven will be compensation for all we’ve lost. But is our greatest hope just heaven?

Our hope is the new heaven and the new earth. Our future hope is a restoration of the world and the life we’ve always wanted. And that changes everything in regard to suffering.

Years ago I had a terrible nightmare. In my nightmare, every member of my family was killed in terrible fashion. I woke up at 3a.m., panting from the nightmare. It was if I had lost my family and awakened to discover I had them back. I wanted to wake them all up and hug them. I loved them before the nightmare, but not like I did after the nightmare.

Here’s the point. The joy of finding them wasn’t a joy in spite of the nightmare but a joy enhanced by the nightmare.

Because of the nightmare, my joy was intensified. The nightmare was taken up into the joy of having them back. The nightmare actually punctuated my joy.

If heaven is a compensation for all the stuff we wanted that we never had, that is one thing. But if the new heaven and new earth is our hope — and it is — it will make everything horrible we’ve experienced nothing but a nightmare. And as a nightmare, it will infinitely, correspondingly increase our future joy and glory in a way it wouldn’t have been increased if we’d never suffered.

That is the ultimate defeat of evil. To say that our suffering is an illusion or to say we will be compensated for our suffering is one thing. But to say that the suffering we experience now will one day be a servant of our joy does not just compensate for it, it undoes it.

“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” There has never been an understanding of suffering that was more hopeful or encouraging.

But to understand it, you have to “fix your eyes on it.”  That’s a discipline.

Think about it until it pulverizes your discouragement.

Let the glory of it hit you.

Don’t just accept suffering — because God doesn’t want it.

Don’t just avoid suffering — because God can use it.

Don’t just embrace suffering — because it is evil.

Instead, enjoy the hope that suffering is going to be engulfed, swallowed up. The evil that hurts us now will be the eventual servant of our joy and glory eternally.

WOW!

Aren’t you satisfied and encouraged now that you have read these words?!

Now, I am going to hook-you-up, as you can download the Keller and Joni Eareckson Tada chapters, by going… HERE… and you can also download the Philip Yancey chapter, by going… HERE!

You can also find a full list of the contributors and the details of how to purchase this title, Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering, by going… HERE!

For the Fame of His Name

Man of Spin