In this seminar, I will share my own experience of significant loss. Experiencing pain and suffering is one of the most acute temptations of faith and raises tough questions about God. It even has the potential to destroy our faith. How can we trust God when our prayers are not answered? How can we learn to develop an attitude of gratitude? 

ASI 2018: Business Unusual

<p>In this seminar, I will share my own experience of significant loss. Experiencing pain and suffering is one of the most acute temptations of faith and raises tough questions about God. It even has the potential to destroy our faith. How can we trust God when our prayers are not answered? How can we learn to develop an attitude of gratitude? </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Unusual Living

David DeRose

The Methuselah Factor: Reaching Our Communities with an Extraordinary Message for Living Longer and Better

Frank Hasel

Longing for God When Times are Tough

Nicholas Miller

Speaking as a Dragon? A Report on Religious Liberty and Biblical Justice Today

Our gracious God and patient Father in Heaven, thank you so much for your grace, for your mercy.

You've been a God and you are a God who has experienced loss and pain and suffering.

And I ask that you will be with us this morning in a special way.

Give me the right thoughts that what I will say, there are so many things that could be said that the things I will touch upon, that they will be a blessing and an encouragement to those who are here in this room.

And may the words of the psalmist in Psalm 115, verse 1, become reality this morning where he says, Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, because of your loving-kindness, because of your truth.

So if you have come here and expect a seminar where I will give you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 good reasons how to deal with difficulties and challenging situations, this is the wrong place.

And there is room for you to leave immediately if that is your expectations.

What I have in mind is that I will share a little bit from my own experience, my own life experience, and what has helped me to cope with some things that were not so easy and challenging, and hopefully share a few things that have been helpful for me to maintain my spiritual, to remain spiritually sane and even joyful, despite some challenging things that can happen in life.

What words can describe what cannot be explained?

So How would you explain to a person who has never ever fallen in love how it feels to deeply deeply love another person?

Now if you were to ask me, how is it to lose your mother?

I could tell you that I saw my grandmother die, but not my mother.

So every experience of loss, every unique experience, All the most beautiful things and the most painful things in life are things where we have difficulties to even find the appropriate words to describe what is going on and what is happening.

So in every suffering and every significant loss in life is unique.

And when I talk about loss in life, significant loss, I'm not just talking about death, to make things very clear.

You know, if you experience severe sickness, if you experience a loss of mobility, if you experience a loss of a limb, your arm, your leg, your hand, maybe even 1 finger, and you are a musician and you're used to play the piano and all of a sudden 1 or 2 fingers are missing, that is significant loss.

If you lose your job, if your marriage breaks, that is significant loss in life.

And I think we all experience at 1 point or another some type of loss.

Someone once said, every person you meet loves something, is afraid of something, and the third thing I forgot, but every person has lost something.

Yes, loves something, is afraid of something, and has lost something.

If you want to start a meaningful conversation with anybody, you start asking those questions.

And some people are not willing to talk about the real tough questions.

They might be willing to talk about the things they love, and you will learn something important about the person.

They might be willing to share a little bit about the things they might be afraid of.

And perhaps they are willing even to share the things that they have lost.

And you will find that if you talk to other people on that level, it connects.

And you really get to know the other person on a level that you will never ever just in small talk conversations.

So every person experiences loss of some sort in his or her life, and every experience of loss is different.

And I cannot provide an answer to all the difficult questions that come along with those experiences.

But what I will do this morning is I will share a little bit from my own experience, from my own life story, hoping that it might be an encouragement to some of you and that it will help you to confront your own challenges in your own life and find your own personal way on how to deal with them and with the experience of suffering and pain and loss and even death.

I've been born and raised in Germany, I told you, and I've been blessed by a very, very happy childhood.

And my mother used to say, let children be children as long as possible.

And if you have very positive childhood memories, they will last a whole life.

So I grew up in a Christian home, in a Seventh-day Adventist home.

My parents are Seventh-day Adventist Christians, and they were committed Seventh-day Adventists.

And They grew up, I grew up in the faith, so to speak, and I believed in God.

Still, every person at 1 point, earlier or later, has to face some tough questions.

And as a teenager, I went to an Adventist school and I had some Adventist teachers, and some of these teachers were good teachers, and some of the teachers, they raised questions in my mind, and they didn't provide the answers to those questions and those kind of questions kind of threw me off and I even started questioning the reality of God and some other things.

Now hardly anybody would have noticed except perhaps for some very, very good friends who knew me very closely.

But these questions were very challenging for me, and they're, these are kind of questions that defy easy answers.

But still, for many, many years, I was never, ever confronted with severe suffering or death even in my own life.

And it is interesting, perhaps we in the Western countries, like in Europe, North America, Australia, we are so enlightened and so progressive in our thinking, in our education in the 21st century, that we think we have advanced so much in the sciences and in medicine that we kind of push away the reality that there is suffering and pain and even death and that we cannot really control life.

And that there is sickness and that life is fragile.

So how do you deal with that unpopular reality in life if it confronts you?

You know, I'm reminded of a passage in the New Testament in the book of Romans.

So I don't have a PowerPoint presentation, I have your full attention, right?

In Romans chapter 8, there's an interesting passage that comes to my mind when we talk about the subject.

In verse 16, 17, and 18, the Apostle Paul makes a statement.

In some other places, you find a similar idea, but let's just focus on that passage.

And he says, The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, he continues, verse 17, heirs also.

Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

But now comes a passage that we don't like.

If indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified within.

So we like the glorifying part, but we don't like the part that talks about suffering, and suffering is part of our human reality, is part of our Christian reality.

And I think we have to learn as Christians, and I believe as Seventh-day Adventist Christians, to bear adversity and difficulties and challenges of life in such a way that the way we deal with that will be an inspiration to others, will instill hope rather than desperation, and that we have to learn even to die in such a way that people will see that is different from what I see with other people who don't have that hope.

So that is something we don't often talk about, but I think it's part of our human existence and reality.

So in my own life I was confronted with significant loss in the year 2009.

By the way, I will share some personal things, things that are very close to my heart and you will realize that I'm even touched today when I talk about this.

So this is not just easy talk for me, but I will do it to the glory of God.

So I see I experienced significant loss in life in the year 2009 when my wife was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer.

She had breast cancer and it was cancer of the most aggressive form.

And my wife Ulrike, she was only 43 years old when that breast cancer was diagnosed with her and I can tell you she didn't choose to have cancer.

Neither did we as a family chose that she should become sick.

And she was still young, I think, with 43.

We had 3 children, 3 sons at that time, the youngest just 11 years old, the oldest 19, and we felt this is not really what we have envisioned for our lives.

After several years, fulfilling years as a mother and a housewife.

My wife had just started and begun to teach in her profession again.

And she was appreciated by the children and by the parents and her peers.

Series

Unusual Living

Longing for God When Times are Tough

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

ASI 2009 Morning Devotional

Knowing Him as a Family, Part 2

40m

ASI 2010 Seminar: Spiritual Growth

Come Search with Me: Let’s Look for God

1h 32m

Throne Exchange

30m

Personal Spiritual Enrichment

Powerful Sanctuary Secrets

1h 7m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

This Testimony

1h 57m

Special Interest Forums

Medical/Health

1h 2m

Another Eye, Another Apple

35m

Twin Cities

Good, but not Good Enough

47m

Non-Profit Leadership

What Every Board Member Should Know: Responsibilities, Risks and Liabilities

1h 8m

1-Defending the Faith

The Authority of the Scriptures

1h 15m

Cody Francis Weekend

Reaching Mormons

1h 4m

ASI 2011 Seminar: Evangelism

Common Sense Health Ministry for Such a Time as This

1h 14m

Sound Doctrine