Many vocations are more important than baseball or football or any other sport, which for most athletes last only a short portion of their adult lives. But regardless of what vocation or position or role in a family God gives us, when God gives His people a platform to stand on, and a voice that can be heard, He expects them to represent Him faithfully.

Think of God’s truths like tools. Don’t use a hammer when you need a wrench. And don’t use either when you need to give someone a hug, a blanket, or a meal—or just weep with them.

In an earlier blog, Stephanie Anderson, on our Eternal Perspective Ministries staff, told the story of her disabled son Isaiah who died before his birth. Here Steph speaks of her beloved sister Tricia, who had a different disability. When she speaks of God’s sovereignty in birth defects, she speaks with an extraordinary amount of experience and insight.

Jesus promised that in Heaven, those who endured difficult things on Earth would be comforted for them (Luke 16:25). The comfort implies memory of what happened. If we had no memory of the difficult things, why would we need comfort? How would we feel it?

Several months ago, when I was sent links to large portions of this Bible, I was immediately captivated by it. I was walking with friends of ours in the raw grief of their tragedy, and I found myself reading the Beyond Suffering Bible not only through my eyes but also theirs.

Laments make up more than one-third of the psalms. The contrast between Israel’s hymnbook and the church’s says a great deal about our failure to acknowledge suffering. 

Müller recounts how he prayed when he discovered his wife had rheumatic fever: “Yes, my Father, the times of my darling wife are in Thy hands. Thou wilt do the very best thing for her, and for me, whether life or death."

Tozer, one of my all-time favorite authors, makes a great analogy in this sermon, shared in the book The Attributes of God Volume 2: Deeper into the Father's Heart.

God “has set a day when he will judge the world with justice” (Acts 17:31). But why a future day of judgment?