Resources by Topic: Suffering and Evil

I’ve had nearly six weeks now in which I’ve no longer experienced the depression I was battling the prior two months, which I blogged about June 30. (See also part 2 of this Spurgeon series.) Like some physical problems I’ve had, I don’t know why the depression came or why it left. (Add this to my very long list of things I can’t explain.)

Shared Hope International began its ministry of rescuing and restoring women and children who have been victims of sex trafficking by opening the first Home of Hope in India in 1998. Asha Grahm, or Village of Hope, has since grown into a 72-acre development two hours north of Mumbai. It’s through this facility that a young lady named Ganga was given the opportunity to escape sexual slavery and begin a new life nearly eight years ago.

“There is a God,” Portland Trailblazer head coach Nate McMillan said when Portland won the NBA draft lottery, giving our city the number one pick. It’s an understatement to say that event dominated news coverage here. Had Philadelphia been vaporized by aliens, it might have made page three.

One day a theft occurred. Five loaves of bread were taken from the kitchen. The guards stole food all the time and would take it home or sell it to some of the prisoners.

On January 8, 1956 five missionaries were murdered in Ecuador: Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian and Pete Fleming.

On January 8, 1956 five missionaries were murdered in Ecuador: Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian and Pete Fleming.

Why doesn't God cure everyone who prays fervently for healing? The life context of the question is all too familiar. The issue arises in our darkest hours—in the hospital ward, in the doctor's office, when the unfavorable test results return. Our need often arises unexpectedly and then consumes us.

For nearly thirty years, the phrase killing fields was synonymous with Cambodia. Between 1975 and 1979, the communist Khmer Rouge killed at least one million Cambodians in their attempt to reinvent their society.

What you say doesn’t only apply to terrorists, but to abortionists, homosexual activists, persecutors, rapists, serial killers and everyone else who has an agenda that dishonors God and violates his Word. We should certainly pray for everyone’s repentance.

I begin with five assumptions. Without them, what I have to say about counseling and suffering will not stand.

Lord, your no answer to physical healing meant yes to a deeper healing

Not surprisingly God and suffering were prominent in the commemorations of 9/11. But missing from most was the observation that there were greater horrors in 2001. This is not to minimize the pain of 9/11 but to sharpen the problem of suffering.

I am writing you this letter so that I will never forget a single part of your short little life within me. Because of you I will never be the same. 

This weekend I received a call from a Christian friend who was deeply troubled. The husband of a woman to whom she had been witnessing had been killed in the World Trade Center attack.