{"id":7275,"date":"2017-08-28T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=7275"},"modified":"2017-08-28T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T18:00:43","slug":"talking-about-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=7275","title":{"rendered":"TALKING ABOUT TRAGEDY"},"content":{"rendered":"

In light of many friends struggling through the recent floods here in Texas, I offer a few words from my forthcoming book, God, What on Earth are You Doing?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Learning to trust God in the midst of intense suffering is a process which usually contains many twists and turns.\u00a0 That certainly was the case for C.S. Lewis who wrote two books on the subject of suffering.\u00a0 The first one, The Problem of Pain<\/em>, sought to address some of the typical questions about suffering.\u00a0 Rather predictably, Lewis underscored things like human freedom.\u00a0 The Problem of Pain<\/em> has some helpful insights, but it is what I like to call a \u201crather neat and tidy book.\u201d\u00a0 Suffering is presented in such a way that the reader is invited to conclude, \u201cOh yes, I see, this suffering of mine makes sense after all.\u201d\u00a0 Lewis was a bachelor when he wrote The Problem of Pain<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the other side of the spectrum is A Grief Observed<\/em>.\u00a0 It is like reading the dark and desperate reflections of a friend\u2019s private journal.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 This second book on suffering was written as Lewis tried to \u201cmake sense\u201d of losing his wife.\u00a0 The ache Lewis felt was too raw for neat and tidy, philosophical truths, no matter how true they happened to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suffering has many causes.\u00a0 Furthermore, everyone processes their suffering differently.\u00a0 Different Christians tend to emphasize different things about God, so what it means to trust God during times of suffering is no simple matter.\u00a0 I vividly remember our two sons playing with a favorite train set.\u00a0 Well, our oldest son was playing with it while his younger brother was trying to join in.\u00a0 Our older son is typically good at sharing, but not on this occasion.\u00a0 Spying out an opportunity to wow our two young sons with some godly wisdom, I asked, \u201cHey David.\u00a0 What do you think Jesus would do?\u201d\u00a0 David briefly looked my way and nonchalantly responded, \u201cJesus would make another train.\u201d\u00a0 My son was focused on the power of God while I was focused on God\u2019s generosity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> It is not unusual to see the two books by Lewis characterized in this sort of manner.\u00a0 For example, see Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life<\/em> (New York, NY: The Free Press, 2002), 210.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of many friends struggling through the recent floods here in Texas, I offer a few words from my forthcoming book, God, What on Earth are You Doing? Learning to trust God in the midst of intense suffering is a process which usually contains many twists and turns.\u00a0 That certainly was the case for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-suffering"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7276,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7275\/revisions\/7276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}