More from Keller

You know the routine by now. I'm going through a great book by Tim Keller called Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. Here's the latest from the book.

In Chapter 10 Keller makes an important point (I underlined it for emphasis).  People who have not suffered much are often shallow, unacquainted with both their weaknesses and strengths, naïve about human nature and life, and almost always fragile and unresilient. I say amen to that. Even in my own life, I have seen the same attitude. I get humbled fast when I realize how shallow my faith and general outlook on life is after dealing with my own problems.

Keller says a one-size-fits-all prescription for handling suffering is bound to fail. As introduction to that concept, he starts by covering four kinds of suffering that the Bible speaks of. One kind of suffering is directly caused by our own failures. Secondly, there is suffering caused by good and brave behavior (think of Jeremiah). The first kind of suffering requires that you learn repentance. The second kind of suffering will entail that you wrestle with the issues of forgiveness. The temptation will be to become bitter and to hide your growing hardness. 

He moves on to the third kind of suffering.It is grief and loss in the face of mortality, decay, and death. When facing this, Christians must learn to direct their minds and hearts to the various forms of comfort and hope that their faith offers them (1 Thessalonians 4:13 and 2 Corinthians 16-18).  Finally, there is the fourth type of pain. This is mysterious, unlooked for, and the suffering that people most often call senseless. It leaves the sufferer not so much filled with guilt or resentment toward others or pure grief – but with anger toward life and God. When this type of suffering comes, our journey is a long one. It requires a process of honest prayer and crying, the hard work of deliberate trusting God, and a re-ordering of our loves.

The author then points out that suffering is not external alone. It also deals in the internal recesses of our souls – isolation, implosion (self-absorbed), condemnation (we think we are being punished), anger, temptation.

Every affliction, then, according to Keller, is virtually unique. And it means that every sufferer will need to find a somewhat different path through it. When it comes to suffering, there are diversities of shape, temperaments, and pathways. There are multiple truths that the Bible teaches about suffering, and these different truths need to be applied in a different order depending on circumstance, stage, and temperament. But there is also a diversity of expression of those truths and ideas. He mentions a couple good verses– Psalm 119:71, 27:4. I really liked this part of his book because he is showing that there is no one answer we can give or one type of discipline for us to follow in tough circumstances.

OK, enough for now. Plenty to think about here.