The Question That Never Goes Away
Why does God allow suffering?
In his classic book Where Is God When It Hurts, Philip Yancey gave us permission to doubt, reasons not to abandon faith, and practical ways to reach out to hurting people.
In this sequel, written 30 years later, Yancey revisits our cry of "Why, God?" in the wake of increased violence and natural disasters the world over. It's a cry that many of us take up with more urgency each year as we sit stunned by the calamities devastating our world, our communities, and our personal lives.
Acknowledging that Christians have not always responded to the problem of pain and grief with grace, Yancey helps us find meaning in the midst of the deepest suffering. The Question That Never Goes Away is a deep and personal reflection on the ways that suffering both challenges and affirms our faith and how we can respond to the existence of evil in a manner that doesn't dismiss it.
"In the face of suffering, words do not suffice. We need something more: the word made flesh, actual living proof that God has not abandoned us, that he shares in our distress," Yancy writes. We find this proof in Jesus, whose own story is one of suffering voluntarily accepted. No other religion has this model of God identifying so deeply and compassionately with humanity—and this changes how we see it and respond to it.
Timely and heartfelt, Philip Yancey has once again offered readers a powerful response to some of the toughest questions that will never leave us in this life.
Top Highlights
“Viktor Frankl, a survivor of four different Nazi concentration camps who went on to found a school of psychotherapy, decided that the search to find meaning in life is our most powerful driving force. And, according to Frankl, our response to unavoidable suffering is one of the chief ways of finding that meaning. ‘Despair is suffering without meaning,’ he wrote; and ‘everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.’” (source)
“The late Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy includes these words tucked away in a subordinate clause: ‘Nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.’” (source)
“If you ask them, ‘The six or seven years you had with your child, were they worth the pain you feel now?’ you will hear a decisive yes.” (source)
“We experience suffering alone — it ‘islands’ us — and for the people involved, scale doesn’t matter so much” (source)
“Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response.” (source)
Product Details
- Title : The Question That Never Goes Away
- Author: Yancey, Philip
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Publication Date: 2014
- ISBN: 9780310339830