Thursday, September 29, 2011

Suffering and the Cross of Jesus

Timothy Keller poses the question below in his talk Suffering:  If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?

God, why are you allowing evil and suffering to continue? 

Even though the cross (of Jesus) cannot tell you what the answer to that question is.  The cross can tell you what the answer to that question isn't, what it can't be.  It can't be that He doesn't love us.  It can't be that He doesn't care.  We don't know the reason that He allows evil and suffering but the one thing it can't be is that He doesn't care or is remote or is indifferent.  He came and He plunged himself, not just into the fiery furnace of our sufferings, but to infinite degrees beyond anything that we will ever suffer,  because He loves us that much and He hates suffering that much.  He was willing to plunge himself into our sufferings and experience it so that some day he could end all evil without ending us.

Jesus Christ went into the ultimate furnace for you, the only furnace that could really consume you. There is your assurance that He's walking into your personal furnace with you, whether you feel Him or not.  No matter how hot it is for you right now, He's walking next to you.

Please take some time to listen to this talk.  I (Brandon) have listened to it three or four times in the last two years, including yesterday morning while I was out for a jog.  Click the link above to listen to it.
 
JUDE UPDATE:  (by Mandy)

Baby Boy had a pretty good day.  :-)
He had fun visitors, and I was able to sit in bed and hold him.

We are still waiting for his body to rid itself of the infection so that he can have his surgery.  We are no longer just following his white blood cell count (which was pretty much the same today) but also his C-reactive protein level, or CRP.  It is a marker of inflammation which indicates infection.  It has been elevated, but today it went down some.  At this point, they are planning to "strike while the iron is hot."  They are going to perform surgery pretty soon after the levels go down.  They can't wait long due to his vulnerability to further infection.  Please pray that his CRP level as well as his white blood cell count would decrease significantly over the next few days.  Please continue to pray against further infection. And please pray that surgery would be soon.  We have heard that he could have his surgery as early as Monday.

His wound hasn't seemed to leak CSF since they took the drain out.  And, there doesn't seem to be any CSF accumulating either...which is a good thing.  Praise God.  So thankful for that answered prayer.   Please continue to pray that the wound would heal completely.


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