Category Archives: Tragedy

Book Review, Ministry, Resources, Theology, Tragedy, Wrestling With Scripture, Youth Ministry

Book Review: If God Is Good

In my ministry career there have been a handful of events that have occurred where I had to completely throw out my lesson plans for the week and deal with the fears and questions brought about each horrible incident.

After 9/11 I can remember sitting with the teens and college students in the class room- all of us seemed shell shocked and confused. “How could this have happened?”

After Katrina ripped into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast I gathered with some students in the gym as we tried to make sense of what we were witnessing on television. “What can we do?”

After the Virginia Tech massacre I struggled to help my students process through why something so senseless could have happened. “Why?”

Asking questions about evil and suffering when world events happen is one thing. But how do you deal with pain and hurt and cancer and evil and suffering and death when they strike closer to home?

Many have wrestled with the question: “If God is good why does evil and suffering happen?” As a minister I wrestle with finding a resource out there that will help me walk alongside someone as they struggle through personal pain, agony, and questions. Unfortunately, finding the right resource has been next to impossible. There are just way too many mixed messages out there.

Typically books concerning the nature of evil and suffering in this world and whether or not an all-powerful God can do anything about it typically fall into three categories: 1) They are written from the perspective of an atheist and therefore write off any discussion about God and faith, 2) They are a sugary sweet devotional book that can be summed up with a pithy “Trust God and it will all work out” finale, or 3) They are deep philosophical treatises that often take readers, who are desperately seeking answers now, months to work through (if they finish).

If God Is Good by Randy Alcon is decidedly much different and, rather than adhering to these categories, charts a brand new course. Alcorn does a tremendous job discussing the problem of suffering and evil in a way that is both personally engaging and full of scriptural integrity. This book is filled with personal stories of those who have been subjected to the worst that evil and death could throw at them. Some of these stories will tear your heart open. Make no mistake, this is no warm and fuzzy devotional book meant to rest on your bed side table. This is an engaging, thoughtful, well-reseached, and challenging book that will give you answers and hope in the middle of whatever storm you are facing.

Alcorn finds his hope within the pages of scripture. He writes in the opening section that, as believers, we can deal openly and honestly with the problem of pain and suffering because God’s Word deals openly and honestly with it. He writes, “The Bible never sugarcoats evil.” Alcorn takes on false arguments, false gospels, and false expectations that all seek to distort, confuse, and destroy the faith of millions who face suffering and true evil. One recurring theme in his book is that it seems that those who have only dealt with suffering in the philosophical realm have walked away from their faith while those who have experienced real suffering draw closer to God and have found meaning and purpose in his loving arms.

As a resource, I love this book. Alcorn has meticulously studied this subject and each chapter includes generous footnotes. There is a helpful Scripture index as well as a topical index that make this a user-friendly book about a most difficult subject. Every minister should read this book and keep it at close reach on their desk. Evil and suffering will strike sooner or later. With If God Is Good by Randy Alcorn you will be prepared to minister to those left in its wake.

From the publisher:
Summary
Every one of us will experience suffering. Many of us are experiencing it now. As we have seen in recent years, evil is real in our world, present and close to each one of us.?

In such difficult times, suffering and evil beg questions about God–Why would an all-good and all-powerful God create a world full of evil and suffering? And then, how can there be a God if suffering and evil exist? ??These are ancient questions, but also modern ones as well. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and even former believers like Bart Ehrman answer the question simply: The existence of suffering and evil proves there is no God.??

In this captivating new book, best-selling author Randy Alcorn challenges the logic of disbelief, and brings a fresh, realistic, and thoroughly biblical insight to the issues these important questions raise. ??Alcorn offers insights from his conversations with men and women whose lives have been torn apart by suffering, and yet whose faith in God burns brighter than ever. He reveals the big picture of who God is and what God is doing in the world–now and forever. And he equips you to share your faith more clearly and genuinely in this world of pain and fear.??

As he did in his best-selling book, Heaven, Randy Alcorn delves deep into a profound subject, and through compelling stories, provocative questions and answers, and keen biblical understanding, he brings assurance and hope to all.

Buy If God Is Good at Amazon.com

Discipleship, Ethos, Ministry, Tragedy, Wrestling With Scripture

Frustrations

4 Comments

In the current issue of the Christian Chronicle, there is a two-page advertisement concerning a cappella music. The ad is presented by a group who identifies themselves as “younger ministers under the age of 55” who are concerned about the growing threat of instrumental music in the Churches of Christ.

I have so much to say about this ad but I think Mike Cope says it best when he writes,

“The world is disoriented, hurting, and lost. God is seeking to restore and repair what’s been broken. And someone is paying for a two-page ad in the Chronicle for this?”

My thoughts exactly.

As a youth minister I’m dealing with students who are disoriented and confused about who they are and struggle with questions and doubts about whether or not God really cares about them. I meet students and families who are hurting because of loss or because of sin. Turn on the news and watch as students are harassed or monks are shot dead in the street or entire ethnic groups are obliterated and you don’t even get a glimpse at just how lost this world is.

We are desperate for God’s healing and grace and yet… this ad.

I am not saying that this issue shouldn’t be discussed. I’m not dismissing deeply held beliefs on either side of the aisle.

I just want us to put as much time and energy in promulgating the gospel message of Jesus Christ as we do in pointing our fingers at each other and devouring one another.

I am not ashamed of the gospel. However, I am more than a little ashamed of that ad.

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Life Draining Schlock, Music, Popular Culture, Tragedy, U2

Save the Music. Save the World.

The World Needs Your Help

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has asked her supporters for some advice.

She has asked them to vote for a campaign song. Her husband had Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” back in the ’90s and she is looking for the perfect song to help energize the campaign trail from now until November…2008. 20 Months From Now!!!

There’s just two problems: Both “City of Blinding Lights” and “Beautiful Day” by U2 are in the running. In fact, “COBL” is currently at the top of the list. Brothers and Sisters, this should not be.

I, for one, do not want to hear either one of these songs thumping from convention center speakers as Mrs. Clinton tries to be all things to all people. Sincere songs should be attached to sincere people. I can’t hear that old Fleetwood Mac song without thinking of the ’92 campaign trail. Will two of my favorite U2 songs be resigned to the same fate? Something needs to be done!

So here’s what I am asking YOU to do:

Go to HillaryClinton.com and cast a vote for any of the other songs. I don’t care which one you vote for. I don’t care if your a Dem, a GOP supporter, or member of the Whig party. Vote for any of the other songs.

Then, tell everyone you know to do the same.

There are some great choices on the list:
“Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones
“Ready to Run” by The Dixie Chicks
“Get Ready” by The Temptations
“I’m a Believer” by SmashMouth

Please help me out on this.

Together we can make a difference.

Ministry, Tragedy

What to Say

John Piper has re-posted 21 Ways to Love and Comfort The Hurting in light of the shootings at VA Tech.

All 21 of these suggestions are great but you cannot go through them one after the other immediately following incidents like what happened yeserday. We forget that grief is a process and we would do well to live in numbers 1-4 for a good while before moving on to offering advice. the truth of “God’s sovereignty over all things” must not be taken lightly but in the face of a massive tragedy quickly offering it to those who are mourning takes the mystery of God and turns it into a weak platitude. That too is a great tragedy.

1. Pray. Ask God for his help for you and for those you want to minister to. Ask him for wisdom and compassion and strength and a word fitly chosen. Ask that those who are suffering would look to God as their help and hope and healing and strength. Ask that he would make your mouth a fountain of life.

2. Feel and express empathy with those most hurt by this great evil and loss; weep with those who weep.

3. Feel and express compassion because of the tragic circumstances of so many loved ones and friends who have lost more than they could ever estimate.

4. Take time and touch, if you can, and give tender care to the wounded in body and soul.

5. Hold out the promise that God will sustain and help those who cast themselves on him for mercy and trust in his grace. He will strengthen you for the impossible days ahead in spite of all darkness.

6. Affirm that Jesus Christ tasted hostility from men and knew what it was to be unjustly tortured and abandoned, and to endure overwhelming loss, and then be killed, so that he is now a sympathetic mediator for us with God.

7. Declare that this murder was a great evil, and that God’s wrath is greatly kindled by the wanton destruction of human life created in his image.

8. Acknowledge that God has permitted a great outbreak of sin against his revealed will, and that we do not know all the reasons why he would permit such a thing now, when it was in his power to stop it.

9. Express the truth that Satan is a massive reality in the universe that conspires with our own sin and flesh and the world to hurt people and to move people to hurt others, but stress that Satan is within and under the control of God.

10. Express that these terrorists rebelled against the revealed will of God and did not love God or trust him or find in God their refuge and strength and treasure, but scorned his ways and his Person.

11. Since rebellion against God was at the root of this act of murder, let us all fear such rebellion in our own hearts, and turn from it, and embrace the grace of God in Christ, and renounce the very impulses that caused this tragedy.

12. Point the living to the momentous issues of sin and repentance in our own hearts and the urgent need to get right with God through his merciful provision of forgiveness in Christ, so that a worse fate than death will not overtake us.

13. Remember that even those who trust in Christ may be cut down but that does not mean they have been abandoned by God or not loved by God even in those agonizing hours of suffering. God’s love conquers even through calamity.

14. Mingle heart-wrenching weeping with unbreakable confidence in the goodness and sovereignty of God who rules over and through the sin and the plans of rebellious people.

15. Trust God for his ability to do the humanly impossible, and bring you through this nightmare and, in some inscrutable way, bring good out of it.

16. Explain, when the time is right, and they have the wherewithal to think clearly that one of the mysteries of God’s greatness is that he ordains that some things come to pass which he forbids and disapproves of.

17. Express your personal cherishing of the sovereignty of God as the ground of all your hope as you face the human impossibilities of life. The very fulfillment of the New Covenant promises of our salvation and preservation hang on God’s sovereignty over rebellious human wills.

18. Count God your only lasting treasure, because he is the only sure and stable thing in the universe.

19. Remind everyone that to live is Christ and to die is gain.

20. Pray that God would incline their hearts to his word, open their eyes to his wonders, unite their hearts to fear him, and satisfy them with his love.

21. At the right time sound the trumpet that all this good news is meant by God to free us for radical, sacrificial service for the salvation of men and the glory of Christ. Help them see that one message of all this misery is to show us that life is short and fragile and followed by eternity, and small, man-centered ambitions are tragic.

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