Sunday, October 19, 2008

Pain and Suffering

I went to John Piper's conference this weekend and the topic was "Job" (of the Bible). Boy does that man ever know how to dissect Scripture! And surprising to me was that he is very animated and funny! He delights in the things God made and it's fun to hear him talk about those things.

The main point that John made for this teaching was why does God allow suffering when he is a good and loving God? I think what I took away from this seminar was that above all things God is Sovereign. And it is wrong to question God, but we do it anyway! Job was a righteous man, meaning he loved the Lord with all his heart and sought after Him in all things. But God allowed Satan to kill his livestock, his family, to afflict Job with horrible sores for days. (God didn't but allowed Satan to.) Job wasn't perfect and he did question God. Another thing I got out of it is that God will use suffering to bring people together. When you are suffering you call your friends and family more, you reach out and connect more because you feel vulnerable and needy. And mainly when you are suffering you reach out to God more, it draws you closer to Him, you are tested (like Job was) at times to see if you truly mean what you say about your love for Jesus. This is a tip of the iceberg so I encourage you to go to the Desiring God website to listen to Piper's message on Job. www.desiringgod.org

1 comment:

David Baumgartner said...

Good, but tough, lessons. I wil have to read his book (Desiring God) soon. I loked for it yesterday but couldn't find it so I'll be ordering it.