Taking the Dave Test? Learn to Tell the Truth

October 14, 2013 by Greg Garrett

Continued from Page 1

And what I learned was what Fred Schmidt tells us in this book. Words were usually unhelpful. But my presence alongside the suffering and the dying was immeasurably important.

By all means, tell the suffering that God loves them. But don't just tell them; model that love. Show that love through your faithful presence. The God who created us, who loves us, will not let us down, but any words we can offer in explanation of that love are ultimately insufficient.

Only the example of a love that accompanies another through the valley of the shadow has ultimate worth.

To read an excerpt from The Dave Test, visit the Patheos Book Club here.

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Faithful Citizenship

Grief

Illness

Progressive Christianity

Suffering

Theodicy

Christianity

Protestantism

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About Greg Garrett

Greg Garrett is (according to BBC Radio) one of America's leading voices on religion and culture. He is the author or co-author of over twenty books of fiction, theology, cultural criticism, and spiritual autobiography. His most recent books are The Prodigal, written with the legendary Brennan Manning, Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination, and My Church Is Not Dying: Episcopalians in the 21st Century. A contributor to Patheos since 2010, Greg also writes for the Huffington Post, Salon.com, OnFaith, The Tablet, Reform, and other web and print publications in the US and UK.

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