When Life Falls Apart , livre ebook
75
pages
English
Ebooks
2017
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
75
pages
English
Ebook
2017
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
20 juin 2017
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781493410699
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
20 juin 2017
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781493410699
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1984, 2012 by Warren W. Wiersbe
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Previously published in 1984 by Revell under the title Why Us? When Bad Things Happen to God’s People and in 2012 by Baker Books under the title Looking Up When Life Gets You Down
Spire edition published 2017
Ebook edition created 2012, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1069-9
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Scripture quotations marked NEB are from The New English Bible . Copyright © 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture quotations marked Phillips are from The New Testament in Modern English, revised edition—J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Permission to quote from the following is gratefully acknowledged:
One Destiny by Sholem Asch. Copyright © 1945 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Copyright assigned to the estate of Sholem Asch.
Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World by Dorothy L. Sayers. Copyright © 1969 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
“A Masque of Reason” from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1945 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1969 by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Copyright © 1973 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Publishers.
“If—” by Rudyard Kipling. Copyright © 1910 by Doubleday & Company, Inc. Reprinted from Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, Definitive Edition , by permission of the National Trust and Macmillan Company of London & Basingstoke and Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface to the New Edition
1. To You Who Hurt
2. The Really Big Question
3. How Big Is God?
4. Answers from an Ash Heap
5. Pictures of Pain
6. The God Who Cares
7. The God Who Suffers
8. When Life Falls Apart, How Do You Pray?
9. Character
10. You Never Suffer Alone
11. Dealing with Disaster
12. Hope
Appendix 1: Questions You May Be Asking
Appendix 2: A Little Anthology
About the Author
Other Selected Titles by Warren W. Wiersbe
Back Ad
Back Cover
Preface to the New Edition
T his book was originally published in 1984 at a time when some people were promoting “process theology” and its collateral idea of a “limited God.” Their argument was that things are bad because God is too weak to do better. When He gets stronger, things will improve, and we help Him get stronger as we overcome our trials.
Today, neither of these ideas takes up much space on the theological agenda, but the major question is still with us: Why do bad things happen to seemingly innocent people? Other questions stem from this one, including: Why is there so much suffering in this world? Is God limited in what He can do? Doesn’t He know our pains and disappointments? If He does know, does He really care? Dedicated Christians who seek to please and glorify the Lord ask these questions, and also children who don’t even understand what’s happening. Costly natural disasters like floods, fires, and oil spills are still in the news, along with wretched economic conditions that wipe out savings, threaten retirements, and destroy jobs. These calamities touch the lives of millions of hardworking people who, from a human point of view, don’t seem to deserve them. Even the most devout Christian people occasionally wonder what the Lord is doing.
Helen Keller wrote in her book Optimism : “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also with the overcoming of it.” Blind and deaf since childhood, she became an overcomer and encouraged others to overcome. “Man is born broken,” says one of the characters in Eugene O’Neill’s play The Great God Brown . “He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”
The grace of God! That’s the answer God gave the apostle Paul when three times he asked God to remove his pain. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). In his poem “The Light of the Stars,” Longfellow wrote, “Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.” If we experience more suffering, James 4:6 assures us that God “gives us more grace.”
It is also by the grace of God that I hold to the orthodox Christian position that God is sovereign. For reasons known only to Him, He is using the difficulties of life to accomplish His purposes. The Lord has not abandoned us. He has provided in His Word truths that can strengthen and encourage us, and it is these truths I have tried to share in this book.
During our years of ministry, my wife and I have prayed, wept, and counseled with many hurting people and have had our own share of painful disappointments. But we have always found the Lord to be a caring and comforting heavenly Father who gives us what we need just when we need it. From my reading of the Bible, biography and autobiography, and my personal contacts with many of God’s finest servants, I have learned that the most exemplary and effective people of faith have suffered greatly and yet have triumphed to the glory of the Lord. Their burdens and battles haven’t ruined them; they have made them what they are.
The aims of this book are to answer some questions about God and suffering in this world and to point to faith in the grace and power of God as our greatest help when we hurt. In short, it aims to help you look up when life gets you down. If you don’t think you need God’s help today, perhaps you will tomorrow, or perhaps you can help someone else. Compassionate Christians minimize their own pain as they emphasize encouraging others who suffer and need God’s help. To receive a blessing from God is wonderful; but to be a blessing from God is even greater. May sharing the truths in this book help us all to be a blessing to hurting people.
I don’t send out this book from an isolated ivory tower but from the trenches where the battle still goes on. May what I share encourage you to be happy with the will of God and strengthened to do His will and minister to others. The best is yet to come!
Warren W. Wiersbe
1 To You Who Hurt
B e kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.”
I’m not certain who first made that statement, but it gives wise counsel indeed. All of us are fighting battles and carrying burdens, and we desperately need all the help we can get. The last thing any of us needs is for somebody to add to our problems.
It isn’t the normal demands of life that break us; it’s the painful surprises. We find ourselves fighting battles in a war we never declared, and carrying burdens for reasons we don’t understand. I’m not talking about “reaping what we sow,” because most of us are smart enough to know when and why that happens. If we break the rules, we have to accept the consequences; but sometimes things happen even when we don’t break the rules.
When life hands us these painful surprises, we start to ask questions. We wonder if perhaps we’ve been cheated. We begin to doubt that life makes any sense at all. Bad things do happen to God’s people; and when these bad things happen, our normal response is to ask, “Why us?”
This book is one man’s effort to try to help the many people who are hurting, people who, in their pain, are asking fundamental questions that get down to the foundations of life. Is there a God? If there is, what kind of God is He? By what rules is He running the game of life? Is He free, or is He handcuffed by His own universe? Is He working out a plan, or is He so limited that He can’t intervene in the affairs of life? Does it do any good to pray? Do we have any authoritative information from God and about God, or must we settle for our own limited conclusions, based on bits and pieces collected from the shattered experiences of life?
These are important questions and they must be answered.
This book is part of what Mortimer Adler would call “the Great Conversation,” that fascinating discussion that has been going on for centuries, wherever men and women have pondered the problem of evil in this world. My hope is to help people who hurt and who are perplexed by the problems of life.
For more than sixty years, I have been involved in Christian ministry, trying to help people draw upon the vast spiritual resources God makes available to us. I have had to ask some fundamental questions. Have I been applying the right medicine to the right maladies? Has my diagnosis of the situation been correct? How much do I really know about the God I’ve been preaching and writing about all these years? Do I have the kind of faith that works in the battlefield of life?
As I wrestled with these and other questions, I came to some conclusions that will be elaborated on in the chapters of this book. But, just so you know where we are heading, here they are.
1. Our answers to the problem of suffering must have intellectual integrity . We are made in the image of God, and this means
