You can face suffering [antikvár]

"I've got so many problems I hardly know where to begin," sighed my client. We all know that feeling. Few of us live very long before some unpredictable, undesirable experience comes our way. In spite of our best efforts to avoid these painful experiences, we all learn first-hand the truth of the ancient insight: "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7).As a Christian psychotherapist, I have spent almost a quarter of a century confronting the problems of suffering. Into my consulting room walk people who are hurting-children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged people, and the elderly. No human being is exempt from pain.Early in my counseling experiences I began to realize that an adequate life philosophy must include a way of coping with adversity. But where is this "way"? And how do we find it? And once it is found, how do we walk in it?These sobering questions puzzled me as I attended the university. And though my search led to the acknowledged authorities in the fields of mental health, philosophy and religion, I became convinced that the most authoritative and reliable help was not found in the textbooks and journals (though I appreciated the insights I often found in them).Both my training and experience persuaded me that a biblically-defined relationship to God as revealed in Jesus Christ is our most reliable source of understanding and means of overcoming life's difficulties. The Bible is the book that reveals the deepest truth about human nature and about the right choices to make in life. As the psalmist said, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway" (Ps. 119:105). This insight is forever contemporary, and so the Bible is my most treasured reference book.The wisest man in the world of his day, King Solomon, wrote: "In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider" (Eccles. 7:14). If we are