Set with the backdrop of Paul Tripp’s suffering in his real and personal health issues, Suffering provides a Biblical and compassionate approach to seeing suffering rightly in light of the Gospel. Life does not always make sense and the effects of the fall are see in every person’s life to differing degrees. One thing in this life is evident, we all face suffering. Suffering is often used as God’s chosen method of brining about change and growth in the Christian’s life. Suffering causes us to come to the place where we realize our health, job, relationships, money, or any other idol in our life is not able to provide the comfort, security, and identity that we are seeking from it.
“If you are looking horizontally for what could only be found vertically, suffering will pick your pockets and leave you empty. Suffering shocks you into admitting that no human being could give you life. It forces you to acknowledge that your job can’t give you identity. It shakes you into the realization that your physical body isn’t the center of your true strength. I requires you to acknowledge that rest of heart isn’t found in financial stability. It confronts you with the fact that personal peace doesn’t come from what people think of you. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that suffering is so painful. Suffering slaughters all of our subtle God replacements. It exposes their utter inability to deliver what we are asking for.”
Paul Tripp makes important connections between suffering, envy, complaining, discouragement, and despair. When we view suffering incorrectly, it can lead us into this downward spiral that turns our focus onto ourselves. We lose trust of God’s sovereignty over suffering. We can wrongly believe that God is absent, or cruel. Suffering has a way of stripping away the things in our lives that we thought we could not live without so we can see clearly the One who we can not live without.
“Left unchecked, discouragement will become your eyes and ears, determining what you see and hear and how you see and hear it. Unchecked, it will become the master of your emotions and the ruler of your choices and actions. Unchecked, discouragement will rob you of your hope and motivation. It will steal your reason for doing good things. It will rob you of your ability to trust. It will make you closed, self-protective, and easily overwhelmed. Discouragement will sap you of your strength and courage. It will cause you to see negative where nothing is negative and miss the positive that is right in front of you. If given room, discouragement will tell you lies that have the power to destroy your life. Discouragement is natural for someone who is suffering, but it makes a very, very bad master.”
It’s difficult to pull quotes from the book because every word is profound wisdom that the suffer needs to believe. Tripp poetically and skillfully expresses God’s truth and each sentence builds upon the next until I realize the entire page is highlighted. He has a way of comforting the suffering while convicting any sin or lies they may be tempted to believe.
At the end of each chapter is a review and reflect section of questions to cause the reader to interact with the content from the chapter. These questions probe the heart and personalize the chapter to our own unique suffering.
I find that I end up buying the physical book, Kindle version, and Audible version of books that I really enjoy and will be a valuable resource for me in the years to come. Suffering is one of those books. Bevan’s voice is comforting and smooth. I find that 1.5x speed is a comfortable speed to listen to the book. At 2x speed, I found myself stopping the book to go back and think through various sections. My mind would stop listening and focus on what I just heard. This is not a book to rush through, it is best to take each section of the book and to search out its wisdom and flesh out its implications.
“When you’re tempted in your suffering to look around and calculate, you must determine to look up and celebrate. When all you feel like doing is complain, you must require yourself to find reasons to praise. When you feel abandoned and alone, you must preach to yourself the gospel of the boundless, eternal, and unshakable love of God. For a sufferer, a heart free of envy is a spiritual war, and we must all cry out to God for the willingness and strength to be good soldiers. The battle for an envy-free heart is big and dramatic for every sufferer, but the grace of God is infinitely bigger and more than up to the task.”
This book is perfect for the Christian experiencing suffering or will experience suffering. It is a soothing balm to the soul for those in the midst of suffering. If you are not experiencing suffering right now, it is a valuable resource to prepare you for the times that you will experience suffering. Sufferings is inevitable in this fallen, sinful world. Suffering can cause you to question your faith or it can drive you into deeper faith. When we are weak, he is strong.
“My hope for everyone that reads this book is that you will find rest, knowing that the most important wonderful and life giving thing you could ever experience no one or nothing has the power to take away. God is with you in hope-giving rest-producing grace and he is simply never going away.”
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Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense By Paul David Tripp |