Product Description

A practical and deeply biblical investigation of the problem of pain and a hopeful portrait of a God who weeps with us.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #180553 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
If God is loving, why is there suffering?
What’s the difference between permitting something and ordaining it?
When bad things happen, who’s behind them--God or the devil?

When suffering touches our lives, questions like these suddenly demand an answer. From our perspective, suffering doesn’t make sense, especially when we believe in a loving and just God.

After more than thirty years in a wheelchair, Joni Eareckson Tada’s intimate experience with suffering gives her a special understanding of God’s intentions for us in our pain. In When God Weeps, she and lifelong friend Steven Estes probe beyond glib answers that fail us in our time of deepest need. Instead, with firmness and compassion, they reveal a God big enough to understand our suffering, wise enough to allow it—and powerful enough to use it for a greater good than we can ever imagine

About the Author
Joni Eareckson Tada is the founder and president of Joni Friends, the disability outreach ministry of Joni Eareckson Tada. She is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Diamonds in the Dust the Platinum Award-winning "Joni", "Barrier-Free Friendships", "When God Weeps", and "More Precious Than Silver".;Steven Estes holds Masters of Divinity and Masters of Theology degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary and Columbia Bible College. He is the senior pastor of Community Evangelical Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania. With Joni Tada, he coauthored A Step Further and When God Weeps and also wrote Called to Die, the biography of slain missionary linguist Chet Bitterman.

Excerpted from When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty by Joni Eareckson Tada, Amanda Sorenson, Stephen Sorenson. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Session One
A Good God in a Suffering World
Everyone who takes the Bible seriously, and many who don’t, agree that God hates suffering.... But it simply doesn’t follow that God’s only relationship to suffering is to relieve it. —STEVE ESTES
Questions to Think About
1. Briefly describe a time when someone you love suffered. Explain how you felt, what you did for that person, how that experience affected your life, your beliefs, your faith in God, your actions.
Was there anything you could have done to relieve that person’s suffering but chose not to do? Why didn’t you relieve the suffering? How did you feel about your decision?
2. How do you suppose God views our suffering? What does he feel? What does he do? What does he think?
3. What are some possible reasons a loving, good, and perfect God would allow suffering?
Video Observations
Getting to know God in the midst of our suffering
Why a good, perfect, and sovereign God allows suffering
How God feels about suffering
Suffering can help us become more "God focused"
Video Highlights
1. What are some of the benefits of suffering that were mentioned in the video? How comfortable are you in considering these to be benefits?
2. What did you notice about Joni’s attitude toward suffering?
3. What are your thoughts about Lamentations 3:32–33: "Though he [God] brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men"?
4. Do you believe that people who are well acquainted with suffering often become closer to God as a result? Why or why not?
Large Group Exploration
How Do We Know That God Is Good, Loving, and Tender? It’s no secret that people, even Christians, suffer. But how can this be? Didn’t God the Father send Jesus to release us from the bondage of sin and its effects? Doesn’t God tell us to cast all our anxiety on him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7)? Doesn’t he promise abundant life (John 10:10)? Doesn’t he promise to give good gifts to his children (Luke 11:11–13)? Let’s take a closer look at Scripture to see what we learn about this God we thought we knew. Let’s see if we can reconcile who he is with the reality of human suffering.
1. Dozens of Scripture passages reveal that God is good. For a sampling of what Scripture says, look up the following descriptions of God’s goodness.
2. With what expressions of tenderness does God describe his love for his people in Zechariah 2:8 and Zephaniah 3:17?
3. From the beginning through the end of Scripture, we read of God’s great love for humankind and see the many ways in which he expresses that love. Read Micah 7:18–20, Ephesians 2:4–7, and 1 John 3:1. What does God’s love lead him to do for us?
4. What does Jesus tell us about God’s love in John 15:9–14?
JUST IN CASE YOU HAVE SOME DOUBTS . . .
In addition to the Scripture passages in question 1, you may want to read the following sampling of passages that affirm God’s goodness and love: Ezra 3:11; Psalm 25:8; 34:8; 100:5; 106:1; 118:1; 135:3; Isaiah 63:7; Lamentations 3:25; Nahum 1:7.
5. Jesus, as God in human form, couldn’t help but show God’s love during his ministry on earth. Let’s look at two snapshots of Jesus’ life. How did he demonstrate God’s love, compassion, and mercy?
a. Mark 1:21–34
b. John 11:32–36
Truth or Imagination?
What we think about God influences our friendship with him. It affects how much glory we give him. But our imaginations about God aren’t reliable—ancient speculations about the kind of birthday present he might like led cultures into human sacrifice. Nor can we simply trust our emotions about him—if we conceive of God as we’d like him to be, we’re sure to recreate him in our own image. We’re liable to become like the people Paul described: "They are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge" (Romans 10:2).
—STEVE ESTES
6. It is one thing to know that God is love, but we need to know that we can count on God’s love. What assurance of God’s unfailing love do we find in 1 Samuel 15:29 and Hebrews 13:8?
ESSENTIAL BIBLICAL CONCEPT
The one and only God exists as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three of them are God together, drawing life and enjoyment from each other. We see particular evidence of this in Matthew 3:16–17, when Jesus was baptized and the Spirit descended on him and the Father in heaven expressed his pleasure with his Son. Because of the special relationship Jesus has with God the Father, they are fully united in thought and action (see Luke 10:22). As recorded in the gospel of John, Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). In John 14:9–10, he explained to his disciples that because he and his Father are one, anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. Furthermore, anything Jesus said or did originated not just from him but from the Father as well. That is why Jesus is able to make the Father known to us (John 1:18).
The New Testament writers understood this concept well. That is why Paul described Jesus as "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15) and the writer of Hebrews referred to Jesus as the "exact representation" of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3).

Customer Reviews

Hard but, Oh! So True!
This is a hard book to read because it hits you right between the eyes with stark reality. But the book when When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty, by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes, is probably the best book I have ever read, it's deep but readable. Joni, is a paraplegic and has been wheel chair bound for 30 years. She is not only a woman of great faith, she is my new hero. From page to page the words leaps off the page with everlasting truth, and heart stopping, tear choking reality.

All Christians are called to suffer and all people are called to the vocation of dying. We all have loved ones who are going through, or have experienced terrible trials of suffering, and death. This book unlike any other I have ever read on the subject, paints a Biblical portrait of why we suffer. So get some kleenex along with this book, and get some ice cream too, because reading it is not all sad, but it is a magnificent testimony of immeasurable faith and truth after quotable truth.

Heaven will all be worth it someday.

Thanks Joni & Steve

This book showed me just how much I am loved by God
Looking for answers when one of my daughter's friends was killed, I turned to this book. What I thought I would find I did, but it was what I wasn't expecting that made all the difference! God loves us more deeply than we could ever imagine!

I have new perspective!
This book is the most conclusive I have read on suffering without trying to give pat answers for why we suffer. The answers are hard ones. Because the whole counsel of God is covered, I understand more than ever before why we suffer. Because all that we go through is intended for our growth as we establish God's unique purpose for our individual lives, we can rest in His love. We can rest in His foreknowledge that our lives would look as they do. This has greatly changed my attitude towards God as I have spent too much time being angry at how He has disappointed me. Thank you Joni and Steve for new perspective and new life!