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Torn to Heal: God's Good Purpose in Suffering, by Mike Leake
Ebook Torn to Heal: God's Good Purpose in Suffering, by Mike Leake
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God is radically dedicated to our ongoing growth in spiritual maturity and holiness. This is both glorious and terrifying. It is glorious because the Lord of heaven and earth is for us. But it is terrifying because we are idolaters. This means that when God brings greater redemption into our lives he also brings a death sentence to our fallen desires. In love, God will do whatever it takes - even tearing us to shreds if necessary - to replace our feeble pleasures with lasting desire for himself.
Sadly, in our culture two false responses to suffering have become deeply embedded in the Church: deadly dualism and shallow stoicism. Each can effectively hijack God’s good purpose in suffering. Torn to Heal equips us to understand and reject these false and self-defeating approaches to suffering, and to embrace God’s good purpose in our trials.
- Sales Rank: #1724368 in Books
- Brand: Cruciform Press
- Published on: 2013-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.81" h x .25" w x 5.06" l, .25 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 108 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
About the Author
Mike Leake serves as an associate pastor at the First Baptist Church of Jasper, Indiana, and is pursuing a Master of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Nikki, have two young children. Mike’s writing home is mikeleake.net.
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Raises some interesting questions about suffering
By Tom Farr
TORN TO HEAL by Mike Leake is a biblical look at the role of suffering in our lives. The problem of suffering is inevitably one that everyone struggles with at some point, especially if you believe in an all-loving God who wants good for those who believe in him. Leake looks at suffering as a way in which God refines believers, developing their character and their faith. He does this by appealing to a story in the book of Hosea where God compares himself to a husband who has been cheated on by with his wife, the nation of Israel. In this particular story, God personifies himself as a husband who takes away all the good things that he gave his wife and strips her bare before all of her adulterous lovers. Honestly, it's a pretty intense and disturbing scene. Leake uses this story and several other passages of Scripture to describe a God who loves his people enough to "tear" them so that they can be healed. The goal of the book is to outline some surprising benefits to suffering.
No doubt the Scriptures indicate that suffering tests our faith in God and provides an opportunity to grow. I like how this book encourages us to see suffering as an opportunity to grow. However, the book takes a deterministic approach to God's causation of every event that happens in history. This, of course, means that all suffering is ultimately intended by God, even if it is immediately caused by secondary agents. And if you believe that suffering is meant to help you grow, then it's not far off to assume that every instance of suffering that ever happens is meant to bring about some good in the world. As Paul said, "Everything works together for good for those that love him." But what about when people don't grow from suffering? What if it breaks them instead? What about unbelievers? Surely, suffering sometimes leads unbelievers to embrace Christ, but not always. Though I agree with the author that suffering can be opportunity for our faith to be tested and for us to grow, it seems like a deterministic approach to God's sovereignty would lead someone to honestly raise the question of why there is so much wasted suffering in the world. Why is there so much suffering that produces no good at all?
Another concern I have with the common approach to suffering is that people begin to replace God's role in their lives as God with something I call "the event catalyst." What is supposed to cause us to change? God, obviously. That's his role as God. If God changes us and acts as the catalyst to our change, then he is indeed the God of our lives. But sometimes people only change as a result of suffering. I won't argue that some people are driven to God and change as a result of what they come to believe about God in the midst of their suffering, but I believe many people rely on suffering as an event catalyst to change. When suffering and not God causes us to change, the suffering replaces the role of God. Does God use suffering to bring about change in us? He can and does. But is it necessary? Only in so much as we, as fallen creatures, won't submit otherwise. God wants to us to place our faith in him and change as a result of our faith in him. I believe suffering is used by God, but may not be in every instance intended by God specifically to bring about change in us.
Obviously, I've raised a lot of questions, and there are many others that I have on the subject, but as this is a review of TORN TO HEAL, I want to simply say that I appreciate Leake's heart toward helping people wrestle with this difficult issue. It raised some questions in me, especially concerning the episode in Hosea that I will continue to wrestle through, so I appreciate him facing the issue head on. Definitely check out the book and be encouraged to latch onto Christ in the midst of suffering.
Review copy provided by Cruciform Press
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Perfect balance between grace & truth
By Vicki Tiede
These days, you don't have to look for long to see who is suffering. If you are still stuck, sit down for the evening news or read a headline in the newspaper. You will be immersed in the suffering of people all over the world. For many of us, suffering has been a part of our story too. Sickness, death, or tragedy through an accident or other means... a broken family, abuse, loss of a job...the list could go on and on. Suffering is an inevitable part of being human.
So in a world where suffering is common, we all could use some relief. In his new book, Torn to Heal: God's Good Purpose in Suffering, author and pastor Mike Leake (not the baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds ) takes on this difficult but important issue. Leake not only looks at human suffering, he also examines possible responses to suffering and the blessing that can come within it.
Overview
Leake believes that God will "rip us to shreds if that's what it takes to replace our idols" and that He uses suffering for our greatest good- often in the most unexpected way. Leake uses the biblical teaching of Hosea as an illustration of God's love for us. To one degree or another, we all turn from God like Gomer does from Hosea, and we are "called back to the wilderness, our wounds aching and spirits feeble, to love us once again." We are not called to retrieve our own redemption through anything we do on our own, "Christ did that for us" but "we are all called to cooperate and participate in the process of our daily, incremental redemption."
In his book, Leake lays out the theology of suffering as follows:
1. God is not evil and does not do evil.
2. God is executing a long term plan to eradicate all evil.
3. God is sovereign, and everything that happens comes from His hand (whether directly or indirectly).
4. As autonomous human beings, we are personally responsible for our own evil acts (that is we cannot evade responsibility for our actions by claiming they were caused by God, Satan, circumstances, our past, our limitations, or other people).
5. God ultimately does all things for His glory.
6. God is ever working all things together for the greatest good of His adopted children.
7. Ultimately, our greatest good is conformity to Christ, which gives us the capacity for an eternal enjoyment of God Himself.
In addition, Leake presents biblical examples of suffering: Job, Joseph and Jesus. He identifies three ways to respond to suffering. We can try to be stoic. If we believe in Stoicism,we live in a fallen world, but it is not up to us to figure out its purpose. In this view of the world, we just push through it. Don't feel; just try to survive. In Dualism, we look at the suffering coming from the devil only and good from God only. We pray for good prevailing over evil. This provides a shallow faith with little root to withstand trials since it minimizes God's sovereignty. Finally, Leake presents a Biblical response to suffering. He presents that God will orchestrate His will in all things. However, it does not minimize our suffering; instead, like Job, David or the other Psalmists, we are to call out to God in our suffering. Only when we believe Christ is our greatest good will we be able to suffer well.
Bottom Line
If you're not into concepts like Dualism or Stoicism, don't let these theological terms throw you off or scare you away. Leake easily and delicately brings his reader along. There is nothing about this book that is judging or condemning to its reader. I really liked the encouragement Leake was able to point his reader to in his biblical teaching. This book leads you down a path of honestly looking at these responses and the blessing of responding biblically. This book really will be a blessing to its reader. Whether you have suffered life events that have been of your own doing, the doing of others, or you just want to read a book on this delicate topic for further growth, I highly recommend Torn to Heal. It is just the right balance of truth and grace. I can say that I left with a much clearer understanding of suffering and Christian responses to it. As fellow sufferer, I know that God's will is a blessing to those who faithfully follow Christ. I give Torn to Heal five stars of five stars.
- See more at: http://www.vickitiede.com/blog/2013/06/torn-to-heal-mike-leake/#sthash.8EpNsI61.dpuf
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Must read for every Christian to prepare for suffering or going through suffering
By Dave Jenkins
Mention the word "suffering" and people are likely to think of a thousand things. When I think of suffering I think of my recent experience with losing three family members and my father being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Suffering I've come to realize isn't any fun while you are going through it, but it does force one or two reactions. The first reaction is to "run" away from it and fill your life with a thousand things other than God. The final reaction is the better of the two options, which is to run towards God who heals broken people and hearts through the Gospel. In his brand new book Torn to Heal God's Good Purposes in Suffering Pastor Mike Leake writes to help his readers think biblically and through Gospel-filled lenses about suffering. One example of this is the following on page 86:
"So the Bible acknowledges our suffering, fully and completely, without ever minimizing the present reality and pain, and without ever giving an inch to the powers of darkness that ever strive but ever fail to defeat God's children. Indeed the Scriptures present suffering as a painful yet merciful tool in the hands of a loving God. Our loving Father uses the furnace of suffering to separate from us anything that will not lead to our ultimate delight. Though painful at the time, there is a good purpose of God in our suffering. He will tear us for the sake of healing us, and he will do it in love, for his eternal glory and our eternal good."
I've learned through a variety of difficult experiences in my own life the truth Mike teaches here. Minimizing the pain or excusing it just doesn't work. We may be in denial about our suffering or circumstances but denial can only last so long. If we don't deal with the pain of death or hard situations, at some point, we will become jaded. God created us with emotions and those emotions are not to be diminished but experienced by grounding our lives in the Truth of God's Word. Learning this took the first sixteen years of my life until finally I was so depressed and sick of everything I almost just gave up. Thankfully before I even got to this point, the Lord surrounded me with many godly people who helped me process my parent's divorce and to make sense of it by lovingly pointing me to Jesus and modeling Christlike character.
This is what makes Mike's book so powerful; it doesn't minimize our emotions but it points to the God of the Bible who truly cares for us. Martyn Lloyd-Jones that famous British preacher made the comment in his book I Am Unashamed on page 63 that all of our problems go back to our view of God. Our view of God as Leake rightly notes throughout his book following in the footsteps of Lloyd-Jones begins with a right (biblical) view of God.
I read this book in almost one sitting, something I haven't done in a very long time. One of the reasons I read this book so fast (not to mention its short) was because Leake is a very engaging writer, and also because I've been processing recent events in my own life a lot recently. I read this book not as a critic (even though I was going to review it) but to think through this topic more and to be ministered to by the author. As I read this book through this lens, I was consistently reminded that God intends my suffering not to just beat me over the head, or because He is cruel, but rather because He genuinely cares for me and wants my good in order for me to grow in conformity to Jesus Christ. The author rightly notes that, "Suffering, then, is a means that God uses to draw believers into greater conformity with Jesus Christ. It is a God-ordained means to joy" (43).
Whether you are going through a difficult season or you aren't, Torn to Heal has something for you. As you read this book you will be confronted by a Sovereign God who knows the pain you've experienced and who longs to meet with you in the midst of your pain in order to comfort you. While many people feel God is distant and disinterested about what they experience, it is books like Torn to Heal that will help people understand that the God of the Bible is actively interested in the affairs of man.
Whether you are presently experiencing suffering or not; there is good news for you, there isn't an old normal, there is only the new normal with Christ at the center. Torn to Heal is the kind of book you will want to pick up and read in order to prepare for hardship, trials and difficulty. If you are presently going through difficult times please read Torn to Heal and allow Mike to lead you straight to the God of the Bible who truly cares for you and who longs to mend your broken heart with the Gospel that makes broken people whole.
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