“Be Still My Soul”

The other day I was speaking with a friend about suffering. She told me that she still doesn’t understand why God allowed her dad to die so soon, but what helps her, what she goes back to in times of doubt, is that God is good. This is the truth she rests in.
 
And this is the truth that has always sustained Christians in difficult circumstances, including Nancy Guthrie, who has edited a new series of “25 classic and contemporary readings on the problem of pain” entitled, Be Still My Soul.
 
This book includes thoughts from great theologians who have walked through dark valleys, such as Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, Jerry Bridges and Sinclair Ferguson; and women such as Corrie Ten Boom and Joni Eareckson Tada share what God has taught them through suffering.
 
In one chapter, Os Guiness describes the foundation of our trust in God:

“Christians do not say, ‘I do not understand you at all, but I trust you anyway.’ Rather, we say, ‘I do not understand you in this situation, but I understand why I trust you anyway. Therefore I can trust that you understand even though I don’t.’

If we do not know why we trust God in the beginning, then we will always need to know exactly what God is doing in order to trust him. Failing to grasp that, we may not be able to continue trusting him, for anything we do not understand may count decisively against what we are able to trust.

If, on the other hand, we do know why we trust God, we will be able to trust him in situations where we do not understand what he is doing….Faith does not know why in terms of the immediate, but it knows why it trusts God who knows why in terms of the ultimate.”

Why can we trust God even when we don’t understand the situation? Because Jesus “took on himself the full desolation of God’s silence so that after suffering in our place he might restore us to his Father, that then we might be sure that God is there and God is good.”
 
Whatever trial you are facing today, or will face in the future, may the truth of God’s goodness through Jesus Christ be your rest.