Longsuffering

By Luke Zimmermann

Why on earth would you want to do a study on suffering? Well, when you suffer a lot and you don't get any answers in church. Of course, suffering is not a popular topic so many preachers ignore the subject. Yet, in the Bible it is a recurring subject. All major characters in the Bible suffered. To name just a few, Abraham, the father of our faith, suffered a very long wait for a child. Jacob suffered the loss of his favourite son Joseph. Job of course suffered the loss of all his family and his possessions. In the New Testament, Paul suffered a lot during his ministry and, in fact, was told: "For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." And then of course Jesus Himself suffered tremendously for our sins and to establish the New Covenant.

As a family, we suffered a lot of mental illness, physical illness, sexual abuse, and even violence, and financial difficulty. It was ongoing and intense. When I didn't get any answers in church as to why Christians suffer, I started to feel more and more isolated. I couldn't connect with anyone and felt lonelier in church than when I was on my own. The pastor had no understanding of suffering and all he would pray for us was John 10:10: "The devil comes to steal, to kill and to destroy." That always gave me the feeling that the devil was running my household and I had no idea why that would be. We lived clean lives and followed the Lord to the best of our ability. Others would say that we just had to have faith. That really annoyed me. Of course, we had faith. We continued to believe in Christ despite all the difficulties and Jesus said you only need faith like a mustard seed to move a mountain (Matthew 17:20). I ended up leaving church. I needed answers and so I started a study of suffering in the scriptures and went to the desert to pray every week. This lasted for about two and a half years and this study is the result.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luke Zimmermann
• Release date: Oct 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223451228

Book preview

FOREWORD

Why on earth would you want to do a study on suffering? Well, when you suffer a lot and you don’t get any answers in church. Of course, suffering is not a popular topic so many preachers ignore the subject. Yet, in the Bible it is a recurring subject. All major characters in the Bible suffered. To name just a few, Abraham, the father of our faith, suffered a very long wait for a child. Jacob suffered the loss of his favourite son Joseph. Job of course suffered the loss of all his family and his possessions. In the New Testament, Paul suffered a lot during his ministry and, in fact, was told: For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake. And then of course Jesus Himself suffered tremendously for our sins and to establish the New Covenant.

As a family, we suffered a lot of mental illness, physical illness, sexual abuse, and even violence, and financial difficulty. It was ongoing and intense. When I didn’t get any answers in church as to