Tag: Suffering
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Promises for a Ruined Reputation
You may be reading this because you know the huge pain of a ruined reputation. The Bible doesn’t shy away from how difficult this experience is: Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. (Psalm 69:20) Here,…
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When God Commanded Genocide: 2 Jesus Died for Every Amalekite
God commanded ancient Israel to commit genocide. You and I are rightly troubled by that. In our first post, we looked squarely at the most clear and difficult passage in the whole Bible on this, 1 Samuel 15:1-3, where God commands Saul to slaughter the Amalekites: every “man and woman, child and infant, ox and…
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When God Commanded Genocide: 1 The Judge of the World on Trial
You are completely right to feel troubled by genocide in the Old Testament. Let’s not be mealy mouthed about this: God really did command Israel to commit genocide. This really did happen. Probably the starkest example is from 1 Samuel 15:1-3, which I’ll quote here in full: And Samuel said to Saul, “The LORD sent…
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That Heaviness Feels True. It Isn’t.
Some days feel heavy.Everything feels bad—or just flat and pointless.Even small things feel pointless or too much to bear. And in those moments, it doesn’t just feel bad—it feels true. It isn’t. One in five adults in Manchester struggle with their mental health. That matters, because people and their experiences matter. But it also tells…
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Life’s Unjust. God Isn’t.
Life is not fair. The strong win. Lies succeed. And things often don’t work out the way they should. God does not promise to fix the injustices of life in the present. Those that claim he always will are preaching a “theology of glory”—but God is not revealed in power, but in Jesus dying on…
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You’re Allowed to Be Overwhelmed
Sometimes all you can do is cry. You can barely get through the day. Everything feels heavy. On days like this, your emotional collapse feels like failure. It feels like one more thing collapsing on top of everything else. But, feeling overwhelmed is not a failure. It’s not a sin. It’s not wrong. It’s something…
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The Futility Loop
You replay it. You try to fix it. You fail. You replay it again. Rumination is that cycle of trying to fix something in your mind that can’t be fixed by thinking. Most of the time, when something goes over and over in our heads like this, it’s not voluntary. And, it’s not healthy. You…
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I Did Everything Right—Why Am I Still Broke?
37% of kids in Manchester live in poverty. Recent data revealed that 9,589—that’s 1 in 61 people—in Manchester are homeless. Of that figure, 4,678 are children. In 2019, Manchester ranked 6 out of 326 local authorities in England, where 1 is the most deprived. My family and I moved onto a council estate right on…
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I’m Scared of People
Sometimes another person can make your whole body feel unsafe. Perhaps someone has threatened you. Perhaps someone has lied about you, or turned others against you. Perhaps it is not one event at all, but years of pressure, conflict, accusation, or fear. And so you feel scared. That kind of fear is not abstract. You…
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Suffering Silently, Already Vindicated
It is Easter Saturday. The disciples spent Easter Saturday confronting their own failure, scared of those around them, with no hope left at all. The closest description we get is from the next recorded moment, in John 20:19: the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews But Easter Saturday was…