Advent Devotionals
Advent Devotionals
An Open Letter to the Christian Frontline Medical Worker
The work to which you’ve devoted your life can plunge you into your darkest hours, luring you into doubts about God’s love, perhaps even about his existence. Where is God in all this?
Articles on Trials and Suffering
295 results found
Why does God allow suffering? What hope do we as Christians have in a world that is filled with so much tragedy? There is one best answer to any question that begins, “Why does God . . . ?”
A Word to Parents at Their Breaking Point
It can be helpful to manage your expectations of what normal life can and should be, and recognize that the season you’re in is intensely difficult in a particular way and that it won’t always be that way.
What Not to Say to a Grieving Person
Here are three things that grieving people wish no one would ever say to them again.
Don't Miss What God Is Teaching You in Your Pain
God works through our weakness to bring glory to his name and make it absolutely clear that it's him who's at work.
How to Die for the Glory of God
Coming to the end of life can be very self-centered and that’s antithetical to the gospel. When I die, I want my life to reflect the gospel.
How to Pray in Times of Trouble
When we cannot articulate our prayer requests to God, the Holy Spirit understands our groanings and translates them into intelligible prayers that God the Father can understand and will answer.
Podcast: Why Did God Let Job Suffer? (Christopher Ash)
Christopher Ash discusses the story of Job and how God's goodness shines through suffering. He also explores the roles of Satan, the fall, and the cross of Jesus Christ in human suffering.
The Mission Field I Never Expected
For those of us who are parents, God wants us to esteem the field he’s given us. It’s not a tiring distraction from the true mission field we should be tilling.
A Narrative of Hope in the Darkness of Tragedy
The sovereignty of God is not some debatable proposition; it is the assurance that your child’s death is not a meaningless accident.
Learn from Job How to Trust God Even Through Suffering
On the whole, Job speaks realistically about our suffering, explores the limits of what we can understand, and compels us to trust God completely.
Jesus knows that true power only flows through weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
There’s no guarantee that because we’re in a saving relationship with God through Christ that we’re going to be exempt from darkness.
Why Study the Books of 1–2 Peter?
Into a historical moment when many Christians feel disoriented, 1–2 Peter helps us recenter our hope on Christ.
Podcast: How to Endure Inexplicable Suffering (Eric Ortlund)
Eric Ortlund looks at the example of Job and how, as Christians, we should respond when we face the kind of suffering that Job did.
What to Do When God Doesn’t Answer
We are called, as was Job, to begin our lives of discipleship with the fear of God and repentance from evil.
2 Reasons We Don’t Know How to Lament
The notion that lament isn't familiar is actually an indictment of the state of the American church.
John Piper’s Prayer for the COVID-19 Pandemic
Grant recovery. Grant a cure. Deliver us—your poor, helpless creatures—from these sorrows, we pray.
How to Resist the Vortex of the Course of This World
By definition, a Christian is one who has been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son (Col. 1:13).
An Open Letter to the Child Facing End-of-Life Decisions for a Parent
How can you make rational medical decisions while flailing in grief? Even if you know your parent’s wishes, the burdens can feel too heavy.
Caregiving Is a Stewardship of Grace
It is easy to focus on physical needs in desperate times, but by God’s grace, remember there are spiritual issues, too.
The Beauty of Shared Suffering
God delights in identifying with us in our suffering. He feels the sting in his chest when you hurt. He takes
it personally.
Entering into the Loneliness of Job
There is a deep sense in which the lonely sufferings of Jesus Christ mean that no believer today is called to enter Job’s loneliness in its full depth.
Why We Don't Have to Hide Our Pain from God
Like a child going to a parent, we don't have to clean up our spiritual act to pour out our hearts to God.
How to Pray When You’re Feeling Anxious or Depressed
During seasons of depression or anxiety, most of us find it hard to concentrate, we feel God is far away, and we despair of God hearing us or helping us.
A Sufferer’s Great Resource in Tragedy
In the early days, the pain and sorrow of losing my son were so intense that I could not focus on anything beyond daily survival. But hope prevailed.
If you’re not dealing with hardship now, you will someday. And if you’re not dealing with it now, you are near someone who is.
An Open Letter to Those Suffering in the Hospital
Perhaps in the hospital bed, you try to pray but can’t find the words. The spiritual disciplines upon which you’ve depended seem oceans away.
The Best News Ever for Our Sexual Struggles
What does God give us to face our inevitable struggles and sufferings? The resoundingly glorious answer of Romans 8 is that he gives us the only thing that can truly provide the rescue, wisdom, and strength we need.
We forget who we are, and when we do, we begin to give way to doubt, fear, and timidity. Identity amnesia makes you feel poor when in fact you are rich.