How Temporary Hardships Prepare Us for Our Eternal Home
Kenneth Boanew
The authors opens his book by describing what it is about so the reader is not misled. Most people read a book like this because it is about how to pray and ask God to take your suffering away. He has written this book to talk about what God can do in our character and heart as we suffer. It prepares us for heaven.
His chapter on the crucible of suffering gets personal as he shares his suffering and his wife’s suffering. We have two options when we suffer. I’m thankful for this chapter because it reminds me of the choices I can make in my suffering. His book focuses on First Peter mostly as he describes how to suffer for Jesus.
The Alchemy of Grace, chapter 2, describes how God takes are suffering and turns it to gold. There’s no other way for God to improve our character and strengthen our faith but adversity. This is a hard truth, and it’s hard to remember in the midst of the crushing and adversity. Boa distinguishes between hope and joy by describing hope as a living hope because believing the whole story about Jesus gives us a hope for the future and eternity. It is a worthwhile hope. We can have joy in suffering because it doesn’t last forever and Jesus is with us.
Next, he discusses how to prepare to suffer. Most of us in the Western world are isolated from suffering because we do not expect it or deal with it a lot. In preparing to suffer, we realize that we should expect to suffer as Christians. He talks about Daniel’s three friends who went through the fire together with Jesus. This was a very helpful chapter and would be useful for all Christians to read.
Boa talks about how Jesus was an innocent Sufferer while no other human is innocent in suffering. He suffered silently and we rarely do that. We must learn to here God in our suffering. We can imitate Jesus in our suffering today. We must submit to God. He describes holy living and what it is to do it biblically.
Another form of suffering is through submitting to authority. We must have a program mindset as we go through this life. He describes submission in several spheres such as the government, workplace, household, and Church. Chapter 9 focuses on ministering to others and how suffering helps us do that morph actively. This was my favorite chapter of the whole book. We know how to minister to those who are suffering and when we have suffered similar hardships, we have a keen understanding of how others suffer.
The author talks about the eternal glory of rewards we will receive after we have suffered in this life. There’s nothing wrong with talking about eternal rewards. He goes through the passages where the Bible talks about eternal glory and rewards. The last chapter of the book is a fine conclusion. He finishes with gems to remember as we talk about the suffering we do in this life. He connected suffering to our character, culture, and calling as Christians.
The appendices of this book are also very helpful for those who are going through suffering. Whole books have been written on how good God can allow suffering, and the first appendix gives a brief apologetic in this regard. The author presents an abbreviated form of one of his books, God I Don’t Understand.
The second appendix gives ten prayer tips for people praying for those who are suffering. These were abbreviated and helpful with Scriptures to look up. Appendix 3 offers prayers we can pray for ourselves and others based on the prayers of Peter and Paul. I thought these were an excellent choice made by the author. The fourth appendix gives a selective list of prayers of lament. My favorite part of these appendices was the fifth one in which Boa gives a list of Scriptures that give us an eternal perspective on our suffering. At first, I didn’t know what to expect about this book. I wanted to read it because of going through paralysis. Nobody really knows how much you suffer until they are “in the pain” with you. This is a helpful book when you’re in the moment of suffering. Kenneth Boa produces a work that can give you a deeper and more eternal perspective while you are suffering. The only difference in perspective I have is that I don’t believe God allows you to suffer for your whole life. I recommend this book to anyone who is going through suffering and pain and wants to understand it better.
