The Question That Never Goes Away

by Philip Yancey

Some days, the news seems too much to bear. Yet another tsunami or earthquake or flood or fire or war atrocity. One more gun-toting madman stalking young people in idyllic Norway or moviegoers in Colorado or schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut. We turn off the news only to get a phone call about expectant parents with a stillborn baby, or a loved one whose cancer has returned.

Really, God? we ask. This again?

If we have faith in God, it gets shaken to the core. What was God doing in the moment when that tragedy could have been prevented? If we can’t trust God to keep our children safe or our loved ones from dying in agony, what can we trust God for?

In his classic book Where Is God When It Hurts, Philip Yancey gave us permission to doubt, reasons not to abandon faith, and practical ways to reach out to hurting people. Now, with new perspectives and stories gathered across nearly twenty-five years, once again he tackles the hard questions head-on. His visits to three places in 2012 raised the old problems with new urgency.

More veteran pilgrim than curious journalist in his later years, Yancey faces with his trademark honesty the issues that often undermine faith, yet he emerges with comfort and hope. Along the way, he shows that Christians have an important role to play in bringing healing to a deeply wounded world.

There are hopeful reasons to ask, once again, the question that never goes away. . . .

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Kindle Edition, 93 pages

Published July 9th 2013 by Creative Trust Digital (first published 2013)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, discipleship, christian

Book Quotes

“One more, final question came from the audience on my last night in Newtown, and it was the one I most did not want to hear: “Will God protect my child?” I stayed silent for what seemed like minutes. More than anything I wanted to answer with authority, “Yes! Of course God will protect you. Let me read you some promises from the Bible.” I knew, though, that behind me on the same platform twenty-six candles were flickering in memory of victims, proof that we have no immunity from the effects of a broken planet. My mind raced back to Japan, where I heard from parents who had lost their children to a tsunami in a middle school, and forward to that very morning when I heard from parents who had lost theirs to a shooter in an elementary school. At last I said, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t promise that.” None of us is exempt. We all die, some old, some tragically young. God provides support and solidarity, yes, but not protection—at least not the kind of protection we desperately long for. On this cursed planet, even God suffered the loss of a Son.”

― Philip Yancey

“On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons, he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out evil, and even overcame death.”

― Philip Yancey

“Those who observe suffering are tempted to reject God; those who experience it often cannot give up on God, their solace and their agony.” The presence of so many in church on a wintry night proved his point. “You can protest against the evil in the world only if you believe in a good God,” Volf also said. “Otherwise the protest doesn’t make sense.”

― Philip Yancey

“It was not pastoral teaching, or small group fellowship, or worship services, or books of theology — rather, they mentioned suffering. “People said they grew more during seasons of loss, pain, and crisis than they did at any other time.” We discover the hidden value of suffering only by suffering — not as part of God’s original or ultimate plan for us, but as a redemptive transformation that takes place in the midst of trial.”

― Philip Yancey

“For us who are Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof positive that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that light is stronger than darkness, that laughter and joy, and compassion and gentleness and truth, all these are so much stronger than their ghastly counterparts.”

― Philip Yancey

“Followers of Jesus stake their claim on the firm belief that God will one day heal the planet of pain and death. Until that day arrives, the case against God must rely on incomplete evidence. We cannot really reconcile our pain-wracked world with a loving God because what we experience now is not the same as what God intends. Jesus himself prayed that God's will "be done, on earth as it is in heaven," a prayer that will not be fully answered until evil and suffering are finally defeated.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: Christianity, Spirituality, Suffering, Why

“recall Gandhi’s remark that if you take the principle “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” to its logical conclusion, eventually the whole world will go blind and toothless.”

― Philip Yancey

“From Jesus I learn that God is on the side of the sufferer.”

― Philip Yancey

“The only effective antidote to the wickedness around us is to live differently from this moment forward.”

― Philip Yancey

“Never do I see Jesus lecturing people on the need to accept blindness or lameness as an expression of God’s secret will; rather, he healed them.”

― Philip Yancey

“Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says, ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ An optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.”

― Philip Yancey

“Faith, I’ve concluded, means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”

― Philip Yancey

“Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response. Although we cannot grasp the master plan of the universe, which allows for so much evil and pain (the Why? question), we can nevertheless respond in two important ways. First, we can find meaning in the midst of suffering. Second, we can offer real and practical help to those in need.”

― Philip Yancey

“Jesus did not eliminate evil; he revealed a God willing, at immense cost, to forgive it and to heal its damage.”

― Philip Yancey

“The storm laid bare an unmistakable truth. More and more Christians have decided that the only way to reconquer America is through service. The faith no longer travels by the word. It moves by the deed.”

― Philip Yancey

“Theologian Hart goes on to note a secret irony hidden in the arguments of the skeptics: “They would never have occurred to consciences that had not in some profound way been shaped by the moral universe of a Christian culture.”

― Philip Yancey

“The question {WHY}, though, never goes away-- not for me, not for anybody. We keep groping toward light while living in darkness.”

― Philip Yancey

“instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offences willingly, comfort the afflicted, pray for the living and the dead.”

― Philip Yancey

“Contrary to nature’s rule of “survival of the fittest,” we humans measure civilization by how we respond to the most vulnerable and the suffering.”

― Philip Yancey

“The redemptive way goes through pain, not around it.”

― Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About Grace in 1998. He is published by Zondervan Publishing.

Yancey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When Yancey was one year old, his father, stricken with polio, died after his church elders suggested he go off life support in faith that God would heal him. This was one of the reasons he had lost his faith at one point of time. Yancey earned his MA with highest honors from the graduate school of Wheaton College. His two graduate degrees in Communications and English were earned from Wheaton College Graduate School and the University of Chicago.

Yancey moved to Chicago, Illinois, and in 1971 joined the staff of Campus Life magazine--a sister publication of Christianity Today directed towards high school and college students--where he served as editor for eight years. Yancey was for many years an editor for Christianity Today and wrote articles for Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Eternity, Moody Monthly, and National Wildlife, among others. He now lives in Colorado, working as a columnist and editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He is a member of the editorial board of Books and Culture, another magazine affiliated with Christianity Today, and travels around the world for speaking engagements.
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