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July 2026

July 30, 2026

4 Right Responses to Times of Suffering

When suffering and evil come our way, they’ll exert a force that either pushes us...

May 2026

May 11, 2026

One Day Everything Is Going to Be OK

It’s been almost three years since author Tim Keller entered the presence of His Lord...

February 2026

February 02, 2026

How Can We Trust God through Trials We Don’t Understand?

I shared this article with a friend who was asking me how not to fear...

August 2025

August 25, 2025

Find Your Identity in God, Not Your Suffering

We live in a time when we are defined as disabled, bipolar, alcoholic, ADHD, victims...

July 2025

July 21, 2025

Diabetes Is One of the Best Things That’s Happened to Me

In July 1985 I became an insulin-dependent diabetic, and my first book, Money Possessions, and...

May 2025

May 26, 2025

God’s Answer to, “Why Don’t You Do Something About Evil?”

Self-described agnostic atheist Bart Ehrman writes, “I came to think that there is not a...

November 2024

November 14, 2024

How Does Evil Differ from Suffering?

It’s bad enough to do evil and abstain from good. But God condemns the moral...

September 2024

September 26, 2024

God Knows What Suffering He’s Called Each of Us to Endure

Sufferers commonly ask, “Why me? Why not someone else? Why haven’t my friends lost a...

September 23, 2024

When the Problem of Evil and Suffering Becomes Real

The problem of evil and suffering moves from the philosophical to the personal in a...

August 2024

August 08, 2024

Letter to a Suffering Christian Tempted Towards Suicide

Following is a modified version of my letter to someone who was experiencing intense physical...

July 2024

July 22, 2024

Oh, That We May Know Our God More Deeply

In her journal she kept during her cancer years, Nanci quoted Charles Spurgeon: Oh, that...

July 08, 2024

Refined by Fire, for God’s Good Purposes

God tells us that trials in which evil and suffering come upon us “have come...

July 04, 2024

Right Now, We See the Underside of Life’s Tapestry

Ever been to a football game at half time when the band forms words...

June 2024

June 20, 2024

Bitter Ingredients, Good Outcome

Like many psalms, Psalm 71 contains both complaint and praise: Even when I am old...

May 2024

May 27, 2024

Trials Make Us Crave God’s Mercy and Love

Psalm 107 begins, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures...

May 06, 2024

An Index of My Writings on Loss, Grief, and Eternal Hope

In the years since Nanci’s cancer diagnosis, and her subsequent homecoming in March 2022, grief...

April 2024

April 25, 2024

Why Good Friday Isn’t Called Terrible Friday

On Good Friday, Jesus experienced the terrible burden of atonement, the trauma of dying on...

March 2024

March 14, 2024

Why Does Our World Still Contain So Much Evil and Suffering?

C. S. Lewis articulated the erroneous conclusion many people come to: “If God were good,...

February 2024

February 22, 2024

Why Does a Biblical Theology of Suffering Matter?

How we think about suffering will radically affect how we see God and the world...

November 2023

November 02, 2023

God’s Word Sustains Us When Life Is Hard

Psalm 119:107 says, “I have suffered much; preserve my life, O Yahweh, according to your...

August 2023

August 28, 2023

Tell Yourself These Biblical Truths about Suffering

In my book If God Is God, I write about how telling ourselves these truths that God...

July 2023

July 27, 2023

God Is Sovereign Whether We Choose to Believe It or Not

I don’t know whether the builder of the Titanic really said, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship,”...

May 2023

May 22, 2023

Trusting His Loving Purposes: My Message on Nanci, Suffering, and Heaven at California Baptist University

On March 21, I gave a 30-minute chapel message at California Baptist University. They asked me...

April 2023

April 06, 2023

The Great Reunion Awaits: Reflections a Year After Nanci Entered Heaven

A year ago on March 28, 2022, I said goodbye—for now—to my wife, Nanci, who...

April 03, 2023

Why the Year After Her Cancer Diagnosis Was the Best Year of Nanci’s Life

Tuesday March 28 marked a year since my wife Nanci relocated to Heaven. She finished...

March 2023

March 30, 2023

God’s Word and the Universal Problem of Suffering

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the...

March 06, 2023

Does the Bible Really Speak of Us Having “Glory” Someday?

I was recently asked this great question: The word “glory” keeps coming up in my...

February 2023

February 23, 2023

How Can We Trust God through Trials We Don’t Understand?

“In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have...

January 2023

January 30, 2023

Suffering Is About Knowing Jesus Better

Readers of my blog know how much I love and admire Joni Eareckson Tada, who...

January 19, 2023

Can Cancer Be God’s Servant? What I Saw in My Wife’s Last Four Years

Last March, my beloved wife, Nanci, lost her four-year battle with colon cancer. All 54...

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