book review image

If you listen to Christian music, you may be familiar with Matt and Beth Redman’s song, “Blessed Be Your Name.” 

Their book, Finding God in the Hard Times, leads you through the lyrics of the song, encouraging the faint of heart to worship Christ through good times and bad. 

When worship meets suffering we can choose to remember what we know to be true about God. 

Matt and Beth share some of their personal struggles as well as the heartache of other parents who have lost children.

This is a short book with 5 main chapters and a discussion guide for small groups at the end.

  The 5 chapters are:

 1. My Heart Will Choose to Say

 2. The Road Marked With Suffering

 3. Though There’s Pain in the Offering

 4. Turn It Back to Praise

 5. You Give and Take Away

Finding God in The Hard Times

One of my favorite quotes was:

“There may come seasons of pain when we desperately try to cling to what we know to be true about God, and yet we are utterly confused by a hardship we’re experiencing. Our knowledge of Scripture tells us that God is eternally good; yet at the same time, a very tough life situation seems to be screaming the complete opposite at us.”

When our lives are torn apart by suffering, it can be hard to choose to worship. Our worship then shows through our choosing to trust God on the “road marked with suffering.”

The last chapter, You Give and Take Away is taken from the book of Job.

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

It ends with a few touching emails from people who suffered the great loss of losing a child.

These accounts brought tears to my eyes as I read how they  sang, “You give and take away” at their child’s funeral. They stood in the midst of their grief and pain and chose to trust God in praise.

“So often the soil of our suffering will become the fertile ground for our seasons of fruitfulness.”

I was anticipating that Matt and Beth would go deeper into their personal testimonies in this book. They did touch on some personal trials, though, and the stories shared might be just enough to work through with a small group, igniting deeper conversation with those learning to walk through grief together in community. I enjoyed this study of the spiritual truths behind the lyrics to Blessed Be Your Name and give it 5/5 stars.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

This post is linked up at Quick Lit: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/reading-lately/ and Book Nook.

 

Finding God in the Hard Times

 

 

 

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