Can suffering be ordained by God
"Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem" by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Several years ago, a pastor was coming to grips with the fact that his second child, like his first, would be born with spina bifida . Amazingly, this man has found great comfort in rejecting the common notion that God will merely use this bad situation for good, rather than the biblical truth that He ordained it for His glory and His people’s good. Stories like these continue to confirm the reality that we must prepare ourselves to undergo suffering and trials righteously. We need to learn how to suffer well. The way we do that is by being equipped with a theology of suffering while not yet in the midst of a particular trial. And to that end, we’ve been looking to Jeremiah ’s experience with devastating suffering at the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC ., and hoping to glean some lessons on how to respond to suffering righteously. First, we learned that...