Some of us have read and heard enough about the coronavirus pandemic from the “experts,” prognosticators, skeptics, doomsayers, humorists, friends and others along the spectrum from helpful to absurd, in every media form and channel, in-your-face-constantly, that we want to scream, Turn off the noise!
And yet, the reality is inescapable. The possibilities are dizzying and discouraging. So we read on. We watch the “news”. We endure. We track the numbers. We speculate. We plan. We socially-distance. And we pray.
I don’t wish to add to the noise with this blog. I do hope to share about a resource that has been most encouraging and helpful to me in these last few weeks. If that mere statement is enough incentive for you to get that same resource, there is no need to read the rest of this blog. Go directly to Amazon or Christianbook.com and buy the book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller.
Even if you’re not yet inclined to get the book, I hope you’ll read on. But please don’t let my brief review here serve as a substitute for reading the book itself! That would be a real loss.
For the last few days of January, Judy and I were in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a conference with 3,500 Christian leaders from mainland China. (This was a few days after the government of China had quarantined the entire province of Hubei – 60 million people – too late to prevent the spread to the other provinces). For four days we learned, worshiped and prayed together. Thirty days later it was reported that NOT ONE PERSON attending the conference had contracted the Coronavirus. A remarkable answer to prayer, and work of God!
While I was there, I purchased several books, including the book by Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. I did not buy it with any thought that the coronavirus would spread to the US, or that it would cause any widespread suffering. And I began to read it before I had any sense that a spread was likely. Providential timing!
In Keller’s introduction, he quotes the agnostic, Ernest Becker, whose words from 50+ years ago seem eerily prescient:
“I think that taking life seriously means something like this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation … of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false.”
(Keller, Timothy. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Riverhead Books, 2013. Excerpt taken from Introduction, quoting Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death.)
That “rumble of panic” is caused by the reality that all will suffer, and all will die. That “rumble” is more evident globally now than in any season of the lives of most of us living today. For those without gospel hope in Christ, that panic is also reasonable. It conforms to reality, to truth … when there is pandemic and when not.
But you need not suffer this panic, having entrusted your very life to Christ, and being now one with him, in his strong arms, promised and sealed for eternal life. Even so, you are likely to suffer loss, perhaps even very serious loss to this pandemic and its economic maelstrom. May I encourage you to prepare yourself for this suffering season … to better endure it, to more helpfully love others in it, to grow in character through it, to gain joy and peace, and thereby to glorify God in it? (Did I mention that one way to do this is to read this book? 😊)
Keller addresses the matter of suffering through the image of a fiery furnace – a forge. The furnace, used properly can be used to refine, shape, strengthen and even beautify materials. The same furnace used improperly can destroy. So it is with suffering. It can refine us or destroy us. It depends, and it does not depend upon chance!
The 16 chapters of the book are organized under three headings: understanding the furnace, facing the furnace and walking with God in the furnace. The introduction invites readers who are already in the midst of suffering to skip directly to the parts two and three, which I did (not because I was suffering at the time, but because I succumbed to the temptation to take a shortcut). But upon finishing the last section, I was so encouraged by it that I immediately read it all from the beginning, with considerable reward.
Keller’s treatment of this universal issue is thoughtful, compassionate and realistic. He addresses the tough questions both philosophical and personal. He covers the major causes of suffering and the various kinds of suffering … and offers biblical, wise ways to think about and to walk through each kind. And he provides practical help to those who want to help others in their suffering.
To further summarize Keller on this vital topic would be to waste words, and your time. Permit me to simply give you a taste, by way of a few direct quotes:
“I want to help readers live life well and even joyfully against the background of these terrible realities. The loss of loves ones, debilitating and fatal illnesses, personal betrayals, financial reversal, and moral failures [he could have added, pandemic!] – all of these will eventually come upon you if you live out a normal life span. No one is immune …. Human life is fatally fragile and subject to forces beyond our power to manage. Life is tragic.”
“As C.S. Lewis famously put it, ‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain’”.
“… the central figure of the whole Scripture, Jesus Christ, is a man of sorrows. The Bible, therefore, is about suffering as much as it is about anything.”
“… the great theme of the Bible itself is how God brings fullness of joy not just despite, but through suffering, just as Jesus saves us not in spite of but because of what he endured on the cross. And so there is a peculiar, rich, and poignant joy that seems to come to us only through and in suffering.”
“Suffering, then, actually can use evil against itself. It can thwart the destructive purposes of evil and bring light and life out of darkness and death.”
“He plunged himself into our furnace so that, when we find ourselves in the fire, we can turn to him and know we will not be consumed but will be made into people great and beautiful. ‘I will be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.’”
“Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine …. While other world views lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.”
“When suffering, believing in God thinly, or in the abstract, is worse than not believing in God at all.”
And finally, Keller quotes Henri Frederic Ameil,
“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.”
Let Keller help you “make use of suffering”. Read the book … don’t settle for this poor summary of it!
Click to purchase the book – hardcopy or e-book
Can’t afford it right now? email me at bart@bartjohnson.net and include your shipping address or choose e-book.
Bart became a Jesus-follower as a pre-teen, which, by God’s grace, shaped everything since. Marrying (way over his head, according to those who know him best) his forever best friend, Judy, then graduating from Oral Roberts University with a business degree, he has spent most of his vocational life in the technology business sphere. He has enjoyed serving as a PCA ruling elder for 30 years (the last 15 at LBC), led a dozen mission trips to Asia, managed a non-profit church planter training organization, and now helps lead ministry focused on developing indigenized teaching and training resources for Christian educators in a major Asian country. Bart’s favorite “hobby” is backpacking in high, rugged, remote and isolated wilderness areas of the far west.
Our own stories are powerful, and even more so once shared. As Fred Rogers put it, "never underestimate the impact that your mere existence can have on another human being."
Here with Voices, you'll have the chance to read stories from various members of our church family, each chronicling what it feels and looks like now that so many things have changed. If you’d like to comment or learn more about this series, you can reach out to us at hello@lakebaldwinchurch.com.