Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense by Paul David Tripp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Raw and real, with hope. The author takes us through his own personal journey of suffering to show how God uses this in our lives. Suffering has a purpose. He also shows us Who God is and how the different attributes of God can comfort us during our journey of suffering. Suffering often exposes our hearts and God uses this to grow us in Christ-likeness.
As usual, Paul Tripp knocks this out of the park. His writing cuts to the heart of the matter. Convicting book yet also comforting in providing hope for those who are enduring suffering.
“…you can be stripped of everything in life on which you’ve depended and not have lost everything, because it is impossible for any of God’s children, no matter what is going on, to lose him.”
“God is never caught up short. He never has a second of confusion… He is never confused as to what to do. He has no quandaries, and he never lives with unsolved mysteries. He rules all things, he knows all things, and there is nothing that he doesn’t understand.”
“Suffering has the power to lay waste to our idols. Suffering has a way of exposing what’s really dear to us, what we feel we can’t live without, and what truly rules our hearts. It’s not just that what we’re going through is painful, but also that we’ve lost what was giving us value and worth. Suffering exposes the inadequacy of hooking our hope to the temporary treasures of the created world and positions our heart to hook our hope to the Creator in ways we’ve never done before.”
*I received a copy of this e-book free from the publisher Crossway in exchange for my review.