Dr Paul Allen

Your darkness can one day bring someone light. A person who’s been through a divorce has the compassion and words needed to help somebody going through a divorce. A person who’s been through abuse, rape, or an addiction can truly understand how to help someone else in a similar situation. And because you made it, God will cause your wounds to glow in the dark of somebody else’s life. And when you begin to share your story with them, hope will get in their soul, and they will start to believe that they can make it.   Don’t waste what you’ve gone through or allow it to make you bitter. If God lets you walk through it, it’s because He’s still God, and He has a plan. On five different occasions, the Apostle Paul was beaten with 39 stripes. That’s 195 scars on his body. Paul said, “Three times I was beaten with rods. One time, I was stoned and left for dead. Three times, I suffered shipwrecks. I knew what it was to be afloat in the ocean a full day and a full night. I thought I wou...

Sometimes, as you watch the hand of God’s providence draw some picture in your life, the pencil suddenly turns, and what you thought would be a flower turns into a thorn. The unanswered prayer seemed finally heard, the hope deferred seemed at last fulfilled — but no. You reach for the daisy and get pricked, instead, by a thistle. C.S. Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman strikes me in this regard. The couple married later in life when Joy appeared to be dying of cancer. After a prayer for healing, however, Joy recovered unexpectedly and perhaps miraculously. The love they thought they were losing came back to them, a precious gift, it seemed, from the hand of a healing God. But soon, cancer returned with a fury, ending their brief marriage. In the rawness of his grief, Lewis wrote, “A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away” (A Grief Observed, 17–18). Experiences like these can shake the soul. More than a few have lost fa...

How goes the world? Answering that question tends to lead to discouragement. Everything seems upside down. Evil is considered good; good is considered evil. Truth has fallen in the streets and is trampled by academic processions, political machinery, and populous parades.  It seems that Christianity is an ever-shrinking minority with less influence than numbers. Who is in control? How can these things be? Although we may not know why things are the way they are, we must believe that the Bible is true and that there is a throne secluded from natural sight that governs absolutely with an agenda of self-glory and salvific good—God’s throne. It may seem that the world is out of control, but it is not. Throughout biblical history, God assured His people of His unfailing purpose at times when they needed that assurance most. Ezekiel lived when it appeared that hostile powers would successfully have their pagan way against God’s redemptive plan.  Since he was a priest, Ezekiel knew t...