April, 2020

After an extensive tour of the United States, German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke was asked what he saw is the greatest defect among American Christians. He replied, “They have an inadequate view of suffering.” (Philip Yancey in Where Is God when it Hurts?)

This is a sobering suggestion.

And if it’s true, we probably ought to address it.

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new sermon series viewing pain as a “substitute teacher”.

Are there lessons we can learn through suffering that would be of benefit to us – things we could not discover apart from pain?

This series came to my mind several weeks ago as I was reading Samuel Chan’s book, Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth. It appears it might be a timely topic. In the the next several weeks, I hope to flesh out five specific lessons from Chand’s chapter, You Gotta Love It.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will use this series to communicate biblical concepts that will help us view our lives and the events that fill them from the perspective God would desire.