God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Candor: Telling Yourself the Truth

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here.

To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Candor: Telling Yourself the Truth.

Moving from Denial to Candor

The world has its way of grieving. But, when our fallen world falls on us, when suffering crushes us, we need much more than research. We need revelation—we need God’s inspired truth about how to grieve as those who have hope.

God’s Word offers us profound practical wisdom for moving from denial to candor. What exactly is biblical candor? Candor is courageous truth telling to myself about life in which I come face-to-face with the reality of my external and internal suffering. In candor, I admit what is happening to me and I feel what is going on inside me.

Biblical Candor Samplers: Fearlessly Facing the Facts

Does God really allow and even invite His children to be brutally honest about life? David practices candor in Psalm 42:3-5.

My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Notice that David is honest about his external suffering. He describes his losses—the loss of fellowship, leadership, and worship. He also is candid about his internal suffering. He depicts his crosses—accurately labeling his soul as downcast and disturbed within him.

Job consistently models candor throughout his response to his losses.

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil (Job 3:25-26).

Again we witness brutal frankness both about external losses and internal crosses.

We could profitably examine the accounts of other biblical characters who practiced candor—Jeremiah, Solomon, Asaph (Psalm 73), Heman (Psalm 88), Jesus, Paul, and so many more. They all convey the same inspired message: it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve.

No Grieving;No Healing. Know Grieving; Know Healing

The Apostle Paul does not tell us not to grieve; he tells us not to grieve without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). He chooses a Greek word meaning to feel sorrow, distress, and grief, and to experience pain, heaviness, and inner affliction.

Paul is teaching that grief is the grace of recovery because mourning slows us down to face life. No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.

The only person who can truly dare to grieve, bear to grieve, is the person with a future hope that things will eventually be better. When we trust God’s good heart, then we trust Him no matter what. We need not pretend. We can face and embrace the mysteries of life.

On the Road to Hope

Candor or denial. The choice is a turning point. It is a line drawn in the sand of life, a hurdle to confront.

Faith crosses the line. Trust leaps the hurdle. We face reality and embrace truth, sad as it is. If facing suffering is wrestling face-to-face with God, then candor is our decision to step on the mat. Will you?

Join the Conversation

How can people begin to move from denial to candor?

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Spiritual Depression and Spiritual Separation Anxiety

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here.

To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Spiritual Depression and Spiritual Separation Anxiety.

Satan’s Scheme in Our Suffering

How does Satan want to trap, trick, and trip us up when suffering enters our world? Here’s his persistent ploy. “Life is bad. God must be bad, too.”

Here’s another way to put it. The theological reality of suffering teaches that our world is fallen and it often falls on us. The personal reality of suffering tutors us in the truth that our world is a mess and it messes with our minds. Suffering is not only what happens to us, it is also, and more importantly, what happens in us.

All suffering and mourning amount to a sense of death, divorce, aloneness, and forsakenness. The doubts that we endure while in the casket of suffering lead to a potential hemorrhage in our relationship to God so that we end up feeling spiritual abandonment.

Spiritual Abandonment: “I Feel Forsaken”

In spiritual abandonment, Satan tempts me to see God as my enemy (Job 3:1-26; 6:4; 10:1-3; Psalm 13; 88; Jeremiah 20:7-18; Lamentations 3:1-20; 5:20). Luther called this spiritual depression. It’s the trial of faith produced when I reflect on and interpret my suffering with reason unaided by faith.

It results in a terrified conscience in which I perceive that God is against me, and in the sense of ultimate terror that God may have forsaken me. The presence of suffering can result in the absence of faith.

I call it “spiritual separation anxiety”—the terror of a felt sense of abandonment. Satan incites this terror when he whispers, “Life is bad. God controls life. God must be bad, too. How can you trust His heart? He has left you all alone. Again.”

Spiritual depression and spiritual separation anxiety are the results of our internal interpretations of external events. They are satanic temptations to doubt God, spiritual terrors, restlessness, despair, pangs, panic, desolation, and desperation. The absence of faith in God in the presence of external suffering leads to a terrified conscience which perceives God to be angry and evil instead of loving and good.

Jeremiah felt and expressed such condemnation and rejection. “Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long?” (Lamentations 5:20). In Jeremiah 20:7, his language is even stronger, making us squeamish. “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed.”

Heman, considered one of the wisest believers ever (1 Kings 4:31; 1 Chronicles 2:6), pens the “Psalm of the Dark Night of the Soul” (Psalm 88) in which his concluding line summarizes his spiritual struggle. “You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend” (Psalm 88:18).

If you’re honest; if I’m honest, we admit that we’ve felt what Heman felt. We’ve thought what Jeremiah thought.

The Rest of the Story

You say, “Bob, you can’t stop here!”

Interestingly, Psalm 88 does. It stops with verse 18 that I quoted above. Life is not a situation comedy where everything is wrapped up in twenty-two minutes. It’s messy.

However…you’re right. We can’t stop with Satan’s scheme. We have a choice when faced with Satan’s temptation to doubt God. In fact…we have two choices. Tomorrow’s post outlines our options when suffering enters and Satan enters with it…

Join the Conversation

When life is bad, how do you defeat Satan’s temptation to believe that God is bad, too?

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

The Lesson Plan of Suffering

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here. To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: The Lesson Plan of Suffering.

Opening Our Hands to God

The Apostle Paul teaches us suffering’s lesson plan. Suffering and death are meant to teach us our need again.

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).

In suffering, God is not getting back at you; He is getting you back to Himself. The actual experience of dying persuades the little god that he is finite after all. When Paul felt the sentence of death, he understood that his only hope was the dead-raising God.

Suffering opens our hands to God. It was Augustine who declared, “God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there is nowhere for Him to put it.”

Delicious Despair

Moses taught the same truth in the passage Jesus quoted during His temptation. Why does God allow us to endure desert wanderings? According to Deuteronomy 8 and Matthew 4, it is to humble us, teaching us how desperately needy we are.

God loves us too much to allow us to forget our neediness. God makes therapeutic use of our suffering. Luther taught that suffering creates in the child of God a delicious despair. Suffering is God’s putrid tasting medicine of choice resulting in delicious healing.

Healing medicine for what? For our ultimate sickness—the arrogance that we do not need God. Suffering causes us to groan for home and to live in hope. The author of Hebrews, surveying the landscape of Old Testament journeys, shows us the way home.

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16).

God refuses to allow us to get too comfy here. Instead, He allows suffering—daily casket processionals—to blacken our sun so we cry out to His Son. Suffering reminds us that we’re not home yet.

At least, that’s God’s intent. Satan plots an altogether different strategy. We learn about his scheme in our next post.

Join the Conversation

What lessons are you learning from suffering?

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

GPS: God’s Positioning Scriptures

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here. To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: GPS: God’s Positioning Scriptures.

A Personal Journey with a Personal God

Moving through hurt to hope is a journey—a personal journey. Finding God’s healing for life’s losses is a trek—a messy trail with far more detours than we would ever wish.

That’s why I’m not promising you eight easy steps. However, as we journey together, I will offer you eight biblical markers on your personal healing journey. As you begin exploring these trail markers for life’s trials, you’ll experience the ups and the downs, the hills and the valleys, the zigs and the zags.

View these markers as your personal suffering GPS: God’s Positioning Scripture derived from God’s Word. Nothing ever written can compare with the honesty and reality of the Word of God. It is totally sufficient to light our path. It is utterly profound in its capacity to resonate with our experiences.

The various “stages” we’ll explore in the grief journey provide compass points in God’s process for hurting and hoping. They empower us not to evade suffering, but to face suffering face-to-face with God.

A Crisis of Faith

When tragedy occurs, we enter a crisis of faith. We either move toward God or away from God. We’ll probe how to move in the direction of finding God in the midst of our suffering.

The end in sight is not quick answers through easy steps. Our goal is deep healing through a personal journey . . . with God, in Christ. He never lets you walk alone.

Our Journey Together

Through God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, I invite you to walk with God and God’s people. At the end of chapters two through nine, you’ll find a built-in “Grief and Growth Workbook.” You’ll be able to trace your journey and you’ll be able to journal about your healing process.

While you can read and apply God’s Healing for Life’s Losses alone, I’ve also designed it for group use. Consider gathering with some other spiritual friends to share your progress along your journey. At the very least, invite one other friend in Christ to be “Jesus with skin on” for you.

Grief tends to tempt us to walk alone. Fight against that temptation. Walk with God and His people as you journey on the healing path.

Join the Conversation

How has God’s Word been a GPS for you in your suffering?

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Creative Suffering

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting please click here. To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, please visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Creative Suffering.

Take Heart

We need to be able to deal with life’s losses in the context of God’s healing. Jesus did.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Peace. With one word Jesus quiets the quest of our soul. We thirst for peace—shalom, wholeness, stillness, rest, healing.

Take heart. Hope. Come alive again.

That’s what you long for. I know it is, because it’s what I want.

The Anvil of God

We live in a fallen world and it often falls on us. When it does, when the weight of the world crushes us, squeezes the life out of us, we need hope. New life. A resuscitated heart. A resurrected life.

Brilliantly the Apostle Paul deals simultaneously with grieving and hoping. Do not “grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Paul, who offers people the Scriptures and his own soul (1 Thessalonians 2:8), skillfully ministers to sufferers.

To blend losses and healing, grieving and hoping, requires creative suffering. Frank Lake powerfully depicts the process.

“There is no human experience which cannot be put on the anvil of a lively relationship with God and man, and battered into a meaningful shape.”

Notice what the anvil is—a lively relationship with God and God’s people. Notice the process—battering. Notice the result—meaning, purpose. What cannot be removed, God makes creatively bearable.

Converting Suffering

Another individual, this one intimately acquainted with grief, also pictures creative suffering. British hostage, Terry Waite, spent 1,460 days in solitary confinement in his prison cell in Beirut. Reflecting on his savage mistreatment and his constant struggle to maintain his faith, he reveals:

“I have been determined in captivity, and still am determined, to convert this experience into something that will be useful and good for other people. I think that’s the way to approach suffering. It seems to me that Christianity doesn’t in any way lessen suffering. What it does is enable you to take it, to face it, to work through it and eventually convert it.”

Creative suffering doesn’t simply accept suffering, through the Cross it creatively converts it. In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, our passion is to learn together how to grieve but not as those who have no hope.

Join the Conversation

What do you think about Terry Waite’s perspective? Christianity doesn’t lesson suffering, but enables you to face it, work through it, and convert it.

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

I’m excited to announce the upcoming (March/April) release by BMH Books of my fifth book: God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting.

I’ll be sharing more about the book in the coming days.

For now, see a copy of the cover image at the end of this post.

Here’s the current wording for the back cover.

Find Hope When Your Hurting—Biblically and Relevantly

You’re tired of quick quips (“Just trust God”) and false hopes (“Time heals all wounds”). You’re ready for real and raw, honest and hopeful conversation about suffering, loss, and grief—from a Christian perspective. You’re longing for real answers, for real people, with real struggles. You’ve come to the right place. When life’s losses invade your world, learn how to face suffering face-to-face with God. Learn how to journey:

 From Denial to Candor: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

 From Anger to Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss

 From Bargaining to Crying Out to God: I Surrender All

 From Depression to Comfort: God Comes

 From Regrouping to Waiting: When God Says “Not Yet”

 From Deadening to Wailing: Pregnant with Hope

 From Despairing to Weaving: Spiritual Mathematics

 From Digging Cisterns to Worshipping: Finding God

“How do you deal with suffering and despair; the times when life seems so overwhelming that you just want to give up? Bob Kellemen has the answers. If you’re looking for tired clichés (“Just put on a happy face”), impersonal academic discourse, and worldly wisdom, then this is not the book for you. But if you want a thoroughly biblical and intensely honest examination of suffering from someone who has walked the path from “hurt to hope in Christ,” then God’s Healing for Life’s Losses is just the book for you.”—Ian Jones, Ph.D., Chairman, Counseling Department, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“God’s Healing for Life’s Losses takes on traditional thoughts about grief and loss and turns them upside down. Dr. Kellemen takes us down to take us up as he develops a biblical theology of suffering and hope. There is a refreshing honesty about the pain of loss and the permission to be real with God and others as we embrace the mourning process together. This book is biblical, personal and healing; I highly recommend it.”—Garrett Higbee, Psy. D., President, Twelve Stones Ministries; Executive Director, Harvest Biblical Soul Care

Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, served for over a dozen years as Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department at Capital Bible Seminary. In his three pastoral ministries, Bob has ministered to 100s of grieving parishioners. In his role as Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries (www.rpmminstries.org) Bob is known for his Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed approach to equipping God’s people to use God’s Word in their personal ministry.

Note: To read a sample chapter, learn more about the book, and to order your autographed copy of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses at 30% off, please visit here.