How to Pray When You’re Feeling Apathetic about Your Faith
If we take apathy seriously, as does God, we will be better equipped to recognize it when it threatens, avoid it, or at least escape from it earlier.
Articles on Trials and Suffering
287 results found
Jesus Is Not Ashamed of Those Who Are Hurting and Hopeless
Be amazed at the power of Christ to transform a helpless man; but also, marvel at the love of Christ that claims rebels like this as his own.
The devil is a very real, very powerful opponent, far too powerful for us to take on in our own strength.
6 Questions about the Book of Job
The book of Job is realistic in the sufferings it sets before disciples of Jesus and full of glorious hope because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
6 Reasons Christians Need to Learn to Lament
For hurting people, knowing that this expression of grief is a biblical and a God-given category can be a watershed moment.
Must We Be Hurt Deeply to Be Used Significantly?
We want our grand abilities and keen insights to make us usable to God, not our broken hearts and crippling weaknesses.
Why Is Temptation So Hard to Withstand?
Why do we need a shield to live the Christian life? The Bible is clear: because we have an enemy, who is poised ready to attack us.
What to Do When People Don't Sympathize with Your Suffering
In the midst of your heaviest grief, those around you will likely return to life as normal long before you can. Be realistic about people and their ability to enter into your suffering, to stay, and to remember.
Embracing God in Your Trials: A 7-Day Devotional
A 7-day video devotional on ESV.org aimed at helping you run to God in the midst of trials and suffering.
Douglas Sean O'Donnell exposes Job's under-the-surface theological foundations that made him hold up under duress.
Paul Tripp’s Story of Unexpected Suffering
Four years ago, Paul David Tripp entered the hospital with what he thought was a minor issue and began a journey with pain and suffering for which he felt completely unprepared.
A Common Misconception about Suffering
A frequent misconception about suffering often recurs in Christian circles. It says: “You are suffering because God is trying to teach you something.”
How Can Jesus Possibly Say That Those Who Mourn Are Blessed?
Much of life happens before you are ready. Our hearts race and our minds search for meaning, but some circumstances resist explanation.
Fear Not, Your Future Is Secure
No matter how hard your story is right here, right now, it is guaranteed for you as God’s child that it will end better that you can imagine.
Looking Heavenward Transforms Our Sorrow
Many may think this heavenly-mindedness would make a person detached and ineffective in this present earthly life. The opposite was true for the apostle Paul.
The Lord Provides—Even in Tragedy
Any good news in the hospital is a glimmer of God’s grace. Any cure reflects not the power of our own hands, but rather his provision for us.
7 Practical Things You Can Do for People Who Are Grieving
There are simple ways that we can demonstrate a deep sensitivity to the pain of grieving people.
The Unbiblical Pursuit of a Trouble-Free Life
How can we keep on loving and serving people when life has so much pain and disappointment? What are the roots of endurance?
How to Pray in Times of Physical Pain
Father in heaven, in spite of all our uncertainties and all our embattled anxieties and all our discomfort, we say, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.
The Key to Not Grumbling in Suffering
It seems to me that suffering without grumbling is one of the world's rarities.
Viewing the Christian Story through the Lens of Our Suffering
Suffering disrupts our lives, seeming to violate the way life should be. This can make us desperate to know why we are suffering.
God’s grace sustains us, even in the darkest hours, so that we never give up. Psalm 88 offers four lessons of hope.
An Open Letter to the Sexual Sufferer
If you are a victim of sexual sin, God offers you true hope and healing.
What to Do When It Feels Like God Is against You
When you’re facing times of trouble and it feels like God is against you, there are two important things to do.
We Are Both Job and Job’s Friends
One important question in reading any biblical text is who you, as a reader, identify with. This is easier for some texts than for others. Who do we identify with in the book of Job?
An Open Letter to the Christian Disheartened by Ongoing Temptation
D. A. Carson, John D. Woodbridge
That you are experiencing rounds of temptation is not as unusual as you might suppose. From the inception of the church believers have found this pilgrim way to be strewn with multiple temptations.
To Cry Is Human, but to Lament Is Christian
Every human being has the same opening story. Life begins with tears. It’s simply a part of what it means to be human—to cry is human. But lament is different.
Podcast: Verses That Changed My Life (John Piper)
John Piper reflects on key verses that have had a huge impact on his life and helped him grasp the connection between our joy and God’s glory.
An Open Letter to Those Suffering from Depression
Although you feel hopeless and helpless, I want to assure you that there is hope and there is help.
A Word for the Discouraged Christian
The Apostle Paul remembered who he was in Christ. He remembered that beating within him is none other than Christ himself—the indwelling Christ with all his resources of power and love and joy.