When Pain Is Real And God Seems Silent

"In the midst of our suffering we need a wake-up call to the truth that God’s steadfast love never ceases.” —Dave Furman, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Church of Dubai; author, Being There and Kiss the Wave Are you feeling despondent, depressed, or discouraged? When we encounter severe trials and suffering, we are often tempted to think that our situation is somehow out of God’s hands. In these dark times, God seems silent, and we feel isolated, confused, and alone. Everyone experiences suffering; even the biblical writers expressed anguish at times. This emotion is clearly captured in the Psalms. Through these brief meditations on Psalms 88 and 89, Ligon Duncan shows us how to respond to our own suffering with the assurance of our heavenly Father’s mercy, which sustains us even in the darkest circumstances.

"All Christians are called to faithfully endure suffering, yet suffering poses one of the greatest challenges to persevering in the faith. In this short book, Ligon Duncan shows how the theology of Psalms 88-89 provides the resources Christians need to endure suffering well and trust God in seasons of pain, even when God seems silent. This volume includes a concise and accessible exposition of Psalms 88-89 as well as practical meditations on how these psalms help Christians today"--

"Is God listening? "Can he be trusted?" In this book, Yancey tackles the questions caused by a God who doesn't always do what we think he's supposed to do.

Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Hurt is real. But so is hope. Kristen and Sarah have walked through, and are walking in, difficult times. So these thirty biblical reflections are full of realism about the hurts of life-yet overwhelmingly full of hope about the God who gives life. This book will gently encourage and greatly help any woman who is struggling with suffering-whether physical, emotional or psychological, and whether for a season or for longer. It is a book to buy for yourself, or to buy for a member of your church or friend. For anyone who is hurting, this book will give hope, not just for life beyond the suffering, but for life in the suffering. Each chapter contains a biblical reflection, with questions and prayers, and a space for journaling.

Pain rips your body. Narcotics stupefy, but relieve no pain. Sleep comes only from exhaustion and the most powerful sleeping pills. You pray for relief. But you get no relief. You aren't really living any more. You pray to die. But you can't even die. Or perhaps you watch the suffering of someone you love. Trouble can wear any of a thousand grim faces. The Bible tells you that God cares when we suffer, but does He? After having prayed and concluded that God is not helping, you may become disappointed in Him, lose faith, become angry at Him, or conclude that He does not even exist. The Scriptures tell us that in ages gone by, God was active in human affairs. But is He now? The author, a retired professional hospital chaplain who has ministered to thousands during times of trouble, reexamines his faith during his wife's eleven years of suffering amid declining health. Often feeling abandoned by God, the author describes his and his wife's slowly emerging conclusions that God is not silent, nor is He as inactive as He sometimes seems to be. Perhaps He has simply changed many of His ways of getting things done.

“Reading of God's silence in the Bible gives me courage to explore the practice of restraint in preaching—not as a deliberate withholding of God's word nor, I hope, as a rationale for my own reticence, but as a sober reaching for more reverence in the act of public speaking about God.” In these 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching delivered at Yale Divinity School, Barbara Brown Taylor focuses on the task of those who preach and those who hear sermons in a world where people thirst for a word from God. How may we approach this seemingly silent God with due respect, proclaiming the Word without violating the silence, by speaking with restraint? Her first chapter examines the late twentieth-century language with which we talk about God in theology and speak to God in prayer. The second chapter addresses the question of God's communication in Scripture and how the “voice of God” was heard less and less in the land as the centuries progressed. Finally, Taylor explores what the silence of God means for Christians and how we may exercise “homiletical restraint” in speaking of the divine.

He Speaks in the Silence is about Diane Comer’s search for the kind of intimacy with God every woman longs for. It is a story of trying to be a good girl, of following the rules, of longing for a satisfaction that eludes us. Disappointed with all Diane had been told was supposed to fulfill her, she begged God in desperation to give her more. And He did. But first He took her through a trial so debilitating it almost destroyed what little faith she had. He let her go deaf. Using vivid parallels between her deafness and every woman’s struggle to hear God, this book shows women not only how Diane, as a deaf woman, hears in everyday life, but also how she can learn to listen to God in the midst of her own loud life, finding intimacy with God and the deep soul satisfaction she longs for.