Have you ever struggled with living in a pain-soaked world? I (Ryan) imagine you have. More importantly, how do you relate to the God whose world this is? That’s really the issue, isn’t it? It’s one thing to live in a troubled world, quite another to trust the God who decreed the troubled world. Thus, Kapic writes, “Central to the complexity of our pain is how it can affect our view of God” (9). To borrow a phrase from John Owen, in suffering, we are tempted to have “hard thoughts about God.” By hard thoughts, Owen and Kapic do not have in mind the natural questions that arise amid suffering: Why? How Long? What are you doing? These questions, I would argue, can be healthy to ask.
By “hard thoughts” I mean distorted perceptions of God, making Him appear tyrannical, angry with you, distant, and implacable. “When these misconceptions take hold,” Kapic writes, “they throw cold water on our small embers of our love for God” (11). My goal over the next several months is to stop defending our preconceived notions of who God is, to start asking real questions, and to persuade you why such hard thoughts don’t reflect the triune God. “If you are plagued by hard thoughts of God, don’t give up. No easy answer will suffice, and no pill can make everything instantly well. Still, I hope that what follows will give genuine encouragement and glimpses into the heart of God” (13).