Dr Paul Allen

I could strengthen you with my mouth,  and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain. (Job 16:5) Job’s sufferings reveal Job’s heart. What he says in suffering opens a window into his soul. He is under intense pressure. He has lost his wealth, position, children, and health. But the worst pressure is that his so-called comforters accuse him of unforgiven sin. They say that his accursed state proves he is under the curse of God; the fact that he is “shriveled... up” is “a witness against” him (Job 16:8). There is something of Job’s comforters in us all. We hear of someone’s misfortune, and we can hardly help but wonder if, in some way, they deserved it; in the same breath, the thought occurs to us that perhaps our own happy state shows we deserve that too. How wrong we can be! In this speech, Job's heart is described in two remarkable ways. First, despite how badly they are treating him, Job longs to comfort and bring solace to his friends (v. 5). Far from wanting to “get back a...

Speak to God God is not asking for silence. When we suffer and do not understand, he is not demanding the stiff upper lip. He does not object to our groanings, our pleas for help, our desperate whimpers when we can’t even form words. He does not need us to piece ourselves together before we say our Thee’s and Thou’s in formal prayer. He invites us to question him. God is not threatened by our questions, so we should not tell the suffering to silence their complaints. Instead, they must take their accusations straight to God and listen. Everywhere you look in the Hebrew Bible, you’ll see exchanges between God and the patriarchs, prophets, or kings. God does not shrink before our speech. If anything, as we see amid the calamity of invasion at the outset of the prophet Isaiah’s ministry, God invites this dialogue. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet,       they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson,   ...

Psalm 77: When we are hit with suffering of all kinds, we find ourselves desperate for comfort. And we won’t find it in shallow platitudes or empty promises. God offers comfort in many ways, but one of the primary ways is through his word. The more we know God’s word, the more we know him. And the more we know him, the more we find him to be everything he promises. He is a father to the forsaken and forgotten. He is a refuge for those in distress. He is a healer of the brokenhearted and a defender of the oppressed. And he is the one who turns our mourning into joy. Throughout Scripture, we see stories of God’s sovereign hands at work. Sure and steady, he directs human history to fulfil his redemptive plan. When Joseph is sold into slavery, and Esther is taken to a king’s harem, God’s unseen hand is orchestrating it all. When it seems like evil wins, his justice reigns. When all seems hopeless, his promises prove true. He is a good and trustworthy God. When we saturate ourselves in Scri...

Grayson Gilbert It is little wonder why a verse like Romans 8:28 is a rally cry to many Christians. We consider Paul’s words, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” and apply them through various instances of life to find encouragement.  Yet the richness of this verse goes well beyond merely the fact that God does indeed work all things to good for those who love God. The specific framework Paul works within in the context of chapter 8 is set in light of the glories that await us beyond this earth. In Romans 8:18-25, Paul speaks of the reality of human suffering in a broken and fallen world that is eagerly awaiting the redemption of all things through Christ. While presently, this life is fraught with many trials and tribulations, the sufferings we experience are to be counted as incomparable with the glories to come. We groan, we wail, we suffer—yet with much hope as we persevere t...

One year ago, we lost our youngest daughter to her longstanding battle against addiction. Walking alongside her in this multiyear struggle sank us into parts of this broken world we never dreamed we would inhabit. Dark places with desperate people became familiar terrain. We fought for life. Death won. Now our precious daughter is gone. Each morning I stare into the eyes of her 2-year-old son, now entrusted to us. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about grief. I have seen how it attacks meaning and motivation. Grief creeps up and seizes a moment, an hour, an afternoon. I think it’s going to be like this for a while. The shadow of death; the empty chair; the burden of shame; the clay pot, broken. Ministry, if I’m honest, is conflicting. It’s been more splendid than I possibly expected and more painful than I ever dreamed. Somewhere along the way, I began to think differently about resilience. It’s no longer the place I am reaching for after the pain. It’s the work of God, in and through my...

Which mark of the church is most neglected today? Could it be expositional preaching or the practice of church discipline? Could it be training leaders who live up to the character qualities outlined in the pastoral epistles? If we could ask Martin Luther, we might be surprised by his answer. In On the Councils and the Church (1539), he outlines seven marks of the church. The first six are what you’d expect: God’s church is recognized by (1) possession of God’s Word, (2) right administration of baptism, (3) right administration of communion, (4) exercise of church discipline, (5) qualified leadership, and (6) worship characterized by prayer and thanksgiving. Luther’s seventh mark, however, may surprise you. He says that Christian lives must be shaped by the cross. “The holy Christian people are externally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross,” he writes. “They must endure every misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the ...

1. Why are we to rejoice in our suffering? Several New Testament passages report the joy our Lord’s first followers felt when they suffered (see, e.g., Rom. 5:3-5; Col. 1:24; Heb. 10:34). Several others tell us that, as Jesus’ followers, we should—indeed, we must1—rejoice, be glad, and consider ourselves blessed when we suffer or undergo persecution, trials, and any other sort of difficulties (see, e.g., Matt. 5:11-12; 2 Cor. 12:10; James 1:2; 1 Pet. 4:13).  But undergoing these things is, by its very nature, unpleasant and, in fact, suffering can be defined as experiencing something that is unpleasant enough that we want it to end. So why are we to rejoice in our suffering? It is because we are to possess the mind of Christ, who, even though he was God, emptied himself to become a human being so that he could suffer and die for our sins (see Phil. 2:5-11; Mark 10:45; Rev. 5:9).  During his earthly lifetime, his disciples had rejected his claim that he, as the one whom they ha...

Anxiety is mystifying and elusive. Some people have experienced debilitating anxiety that has found them in the back of an ambulance, while others have the occasional anxious thought that passes briefly through their minds before they fall into a peaceful sleep. For some, anxiety can make it difficult to perform daily rudimentary tasks. For others, anxiety comes around only a few times every year and doesn’t significantly disrupt everyday life. Whatever form anxiety takes, Christians need to know how to meet it with biblical directives and wisdom for our unsettled hearts. When anxiety rears its ugly head, what are we to do? When anxiety is a constant companion for the Christian, how do we remain faithful? Before considering these questions, it’s worth noting that our God-given fight-or-flight instincts are good.   God created our brains to alert us to potential danger. But our brains are subject to the effects of the fall, so our danger-sensing systems can sometimes lead us astray...

Sometimes the pain in our lives is so intense that we can barely breathe. It doesn't feel like we deserve the pain (and perhaps we don't), and it is unjust for God to allow us to walk through the darkness. One of the worst things that someone can say at that time is to quote Romans 8:28, so before those times come we need to decide whether or not God is all good all the time, and whether or not he works in all things for good. There is so much pain in this world, pain that far exceeds my own. Adult survivors of abuse — sexual, physical, emotional. I remember a single mom in our church trying desperately to find a family to adopt her three children before she died of cancer. But pain is our teacher, and I slowly learned the meaning of Romans 8:28–30. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the fi...

If someone asks me, “Do you think God planned for those planes to fly into the World Trade Center towers in New York on 9/11 in 2001?” I answer in two ways. I say, “If God cannot blow a plane with his breath a hundred feet off course to the right, then he’s not God.” And I say, “If we surrender the all-governing providence of God in order to save him from any causality in those tragic events, then by saving him, I lose him as a sovereign, wise God who can give meaning and strength and hope to those who have lost the most in this tragedy.” In other words, it is the very sovereignty by which he governed those jets that enables him to govern all things for the good of tens of thousands of survivors who look to him for strength and purpose and hope in their massive losses. So, my sixth precious, real-life effect of seeing and savouring the all-governing providence of God is that this providence assures us that the so-called “problem” of God’s sovereignty in suffering is more than relieved ...