If we are to take our heads out of the sand, and hit the hard questions head-on, so that we can be prepared for suffering, as we plan to do in the book of Job on Sunday, then we need to be sure about what we believe to be true.
In explaining how to begin considering what we believe to be true, Ravi Zacharias points out that every thinking person must confront four basic questions: the questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
- How did life come to be in the first place?
- To what purpose is my life?
- How may I choose between right and wrong?
- What happens to me when I die?
Ravi goes on to explain that the answers we arrive at and give must correspond with reality and fit with one another. Ravi encourages us that “Answers that correspond with reality and fit into a coherent system provide the individual a world-view by which all of life’s choices may then be made.”
*Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil, 219.
See also:
Hitting Hard Questions Head-On
Would You Agree That Time is the Hard Part?
Current Questions for the Study of Job
Ash Helps Us Move to the Heart of the Matter on Job
9 Reasons Tim Keller’s Book on Suffering is Superb
Andy Naselli’s interview of John Frame regarding the Problem of Evil
Men seek an understanding of suffering in cause and effect
Job: A Writer of Superb Genius Has Erected a Monumental Work
When Suffering Avoid “I Hate Thee” and “I Hate Me”
Does the Book of Job Offer An Explanation for Why People Suffer?
Christian Books on Pain and Suffering
If You Never Did Anything in Advance, There is Relatively Little You Can Do At The Time
Once You Are In A Crisis, There is Not Time
Four Wrong Answers to the Question Why Me
I don’t know if we can ever be prepared to experience pain. But I do know that when we are traveling through the tunnel of chaos, it is there that we meet our God in a very personal way. When we eventually come out the other end we are assured that God was always in control. When we face the next tunnel, and we will, we look back and remember that God got us through before. It doesn’t necessarily lessen the pain but it reminds us to hold on with all our might. I often wonder how people who don’t know The Lord get through those times. They must have no hope, no road map, no comfort…. I am so grateful to have our God that wraps his arms around us and for an extended family of believers to walk beside us. For me, these are the things that give purpose to our lives. I love reading and listening to Ravi Zacharias. He is truely used by God to make sense of our otherwise senseless world.
Thanks Bonnie. Those are such helpful thoughts – – they will really encourage people including me. Like you, I enjoy Ravi.