Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering - A Review

Joni Eareckson Tada reviews Tim Keller's new book on pain and suffering. She writes:

...when I pick up a hefty manuscript written by a popular pastor/theologian—even if it is Timothy Keller—I muse, Will these pages actually reach people where they hurt—in the gut and in the heart?

Well, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering comes pretty close. I hate to sound trite, but it has something for everyone—something for the agnostic (Keller makes a strong argument that there are no true atheists); something for the philosopher (although he invites the wounded reader to skip that section); and something for the believer being beckoned into the inner sanctum of sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings (a place no one naturally wants to go).

Is it possible? Can Keller’s latest—and some have said his most significant—work accomplish all this? Is he actually saying something new under the sun?

I will tell you what is new: it is the way he has left no theological, philosophical, or personal stone unturned. The book is incredibly well researched, weaving timeless scriptures between salient observations of everyone from Camus to New York Times columnists. Yet it is impossibly personal—you can tell he’s a pastor. Keller has a way of taking the walking wounded by the hand and gently placing it in the Savior’s.

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering may be the most comprehensive contemporary book on the subject.

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