Suffering and Evil

God doesn’t only promise to replace our grief with joy, but to turn it into joy. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”

I’ve mentioned that Nanci’s journal she kept over the last four years of her cancer contains many Charles Haddon Spurgeon quotes. A few months ago she wrote down some profound sentences from this sermon by Spurgeon, titled “Safe Shelter.” It seemed right to share more of it with you.

I write this on the one-month anniversary of Nanci’s homegoing. Strange to think that our true home is a place we’ve never been. Paul said, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23). Yet our eternal home will be on the New Earth where “no longer will there be any curse.”

Contemplating the final end of sorrow has brought me great comfort in my first month of grief after my precious wife’s death. I already can’t wait to see Nanci again and have her show me around Heaven, and then after the resurrection when we relocate to the New Earth, for us to both experience it for the first time together. How glorious that will be, and above all just to be with Jesus regardless of where!

God’s Word contains countless expressions of concern and anguish about the hard times people experience and the fact that they sometimes don’t feel God’s closeness. In this fallen world, “Why?” is a common question.

In October 2018, Nanci wrote in her journal that she was “above all, eternally thankful for the incredible growth in my heart spiritually. I honestly would not trade this cancer experience to go back to where I was—which wasn’t bad. I believed and experienced God’s hand on my life before cancer. But these last months have been used by God to propel me into a deeper understanding and experience of His sovereignty, wisdom, steadfast love, mercy, grace, faithfulness, immanency, and trustworthiness and omnipotence.”

In light of Nanci’s departure to be with Jesus four weeks ago, a kind sister reached out to me, saying she was hoping and praying that I felt the closeness of Jesus. I told her that I do indeed sense His closeness. At the same time, grief and sometimes depression come upon me in waves. But they do not drive out Jesus or the Holy Spirit, both of whom indwell me (Romans 8:8-11).

I usually don’t look for comfort from my own books—but when I set out a copy of 90 Days of God’s Goodness for a friend in need, I was thinking about Nanci and palpably feeling her absence. So I picked up the nearest book even though I’d written it, and the next thing I knew God had really touched me through the first six entries.

I appreciated this article by Jeremy Linneman, lead pastor of Trinity Community Church in Columbia, Missouri. He shares several quotes from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, a book God has used in my life profoundly. It is still one of my top five books of all time.