Beyond the Suffering offers an in-depth exploration of the rich tradition of African American soul care, showing Christians proven ways to help people find hope in the midst of deep pain and sorrow.
If God is all powerful and all loving, why do innocent people suffer? This question is the principle reason why many claim they cannot believe in God. Suffering is intensely personal, exposing our vulnerability and making us fearful. It is the prime motivation for prayer and when those prayers go unanswered we feel betrayed. In this book, the author John Harries explores our dilemma through the experience of Job, whose struggle to find an explanation for his suffering has been specifically recorded to answer our deepest questions. The revelations Job receives from God form the most complete and profound teaching on suffering ever written. John Harries explores the close parallels between Job's story and the life of Jesus, further showing that Job anticipates Christ and foresees in him our salvation. He argues that through Job, believers encounter Christ in his passion and discover afresh the gospel of redemption. He offers a pastorally relevant explanation for righteous suffering, encouraging a deeper awareness of God's presence, a growing confidence in sharing our faith and a greater understanding of how to respond biblically to those who question why a loving God should allow suffering.
Rich with personal experience and examples drawn from the lives of great men, Layton Talbert s exploration of the book of Job deals with the depths of human suffering and the heights of God s supreme purpose. Dr. Talbert s thorough research, detailed examination of each speaker s perspective, and countless cross-references make Beyond Suffering an essential resource for any biblical scholar"
China was afflicted by a brutal succession of conflicts through much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet there has never been clear understanding of how wartime suffering has defined the nation and shaped its people. In Beyond Suffering, a distinguished group of Chinese historians draws on often fragmentary accounts of nearly forgotten incidents to piece together the multiple fronts – social, institutional, and cultural – on which wars have been fought, experienced, and remembered. From the Blagoveshchensk Massacre to the trials of the Jiangxi Number One Children’s Home, these accounts of war-inflicted suffering bring us closer to understanding war and militarism in China.
This book presents the key issues, debates, concepts, approaches, and questions that together define the lives of rural people living in extreme poverty in the aftermath of political violence in a developing country context. Divided into nine chapters, the book addresses issues such as the complexities of human suffering, losing trust, psychic wounds, dealing with post-traumatic stress situations, and disillusionment after change. By building knowledge about human and social suffering in a post-conflict environment, the book counters the objectification of human and social suffering and the moral detachment with which it is associated. In addition, it presents practical ways to help make things better. It discusses new methodological concepts based around empathy and participation to show how the subjective reality of human and social suffering matter. Finally, the book maps a burgeoning field of enquiry based around the need for linking psychosocial approaches with the actual lived experience of individuals and groups.
There is hardly a person who doesn’t know someone dealing with a disability, disease, chronic illness, or other form of personal suffering. The Beyond Suffering Bible is the first study Bible to directly address those who suffer and the people who love and care for them. From bestselling author, singer, and radio host Joni Eareckson Tada and the experts at Joni and Friends Christian Institute on Disability, the Beyond Suffering Bible is filled with thousands of notes and features that invite readers into a conversation about suffering and its place in each person’s life. Each feature has been carefully created to provide readers with valuable information, meaningful encouragement, and challenging applications as they encounter God’s Word.
Wrestling with the question, Is God to blame?, Gregory A. Boyd offers a hopeful picture of a sovereign God who is relentlessly opposed to evil, who knows our sufferings and who can be trusted to bring us through them to renewed life.
Sometimes life just hurts. Out of nowhere, death, illness, unemployment, or a difficult relationship can change our lives and challenge everything we thought we knew—leaving us feeling unable to cope. But, in the midst if all this pain and confusion, we are not alone. Weaving together his personal story, pastoral ministry experience, and biblical insights, best-selling author Paul David Tripp helps us trust God in the midst of suffering. He identifies traps to avoid in our suffering and points us instead to comforts to embrace. This raw yet hope-filled book will help you cling to God's promises when trials come and move forward with the hope of the gospel.
To move beyond pain and suffering does not necessarily mean to live without pain and suffering. It means learning to adapt to adversity so the most difficult parts of our lives are no longer the most significant parts of our lives. Life comes at us quickly and is like a series of doors. Sometimes we don't like the doors we have to go through, but we still have to walk through them. We all experience hardships in our lives so it is of great help to have tools in place for challenges we are experiencing in the moment to minimize despair, as well as unpredictable stressors such as pain, trauma, diseases and other illnesses, financial trouble, relationship issues, loss, fear, anxiety, and depression, to name just a few. This book provides practical concepts and strategies for how to cope and manage these and other situations to reduce the burden they bring, be it physical, emotional, or both. When we learn to live beyond our pain and suffering, our physical and/or emotional challenges do not become the dominant force in our lives.
Long ago, the Buddha taught that we create the world with our thoughts; and the more attached we are to things being a certain way, the more we suffer. Nowhere is this clearer than with chronic illness and pain: Our self-blame, anguish, depression, fear, loneliness, anger and embarrassment are the byproducts of denying the reality of illness or pain. If we are courageous enough to set aside our beliefs, hopes, and longings for a former or mythical ideal of health, which pull us out of the present moment, we free ourselves from the hell realm of suffering. Mindfully observing what is right here-and-now enables true healing to take place--healing that moves us beyond our naive ideas of health and illness. After all, we are not brains on a stick. Mind and body are united by spirit and it is spiritual understanding that leads us to the well where wisdom, love and compassion abide--qualities vital to the recovery of wholeness and well-being. SUFFERING BUDDHA points the way to inner healing; it is not a how-to manual or glib prescription for spiritual transcendence, precisely because such are not necessary. In our own wise, awakened hearts lies the key to wellness and ease.