As I am reading through Suffering by Paul Tripp I am simply picking out truths that are helpful for me and hopefully helpful for you. In chapter three Tripp tackles the deeper issues of our suffering – the way that our hearts react to suffering.
As people made in God’s image, none of us lives life based on the raw facts of our experiences. We all live based on our particular interpretation of those facts. In this way, the central battleground of suffering is not physical, financial, situational, or relational. The impact of suffering on all those things is real, often long-term, and sometimes breathtakingly difficult. But the physical hardship always becomes hardship of the heart. Physical suffering soon becomes a war of thoughts and desires. Suffering yanks profound questions and cravings out of us. It forces us to examine and consider things in a new way or for the first time. It makes us wonder in ways we’ve never wondered, to doubt what we previously assumed, to crave what we’ve never desired, and to think in ways we’ve never thought.
Paul Tripp, Suffering, 47
What is suffering squeezing out of your heart?