Looking

UP

When Life Gets You

DOWN

WARREN W. WIERSBE

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 1984, 2012 by Warren W. Wiersbe

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerbooks.com

Original edition published in 1984 by Revell under the title Why Us? When Bad Things Happen to God’s People

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wiersbe, Warren W.

Looking up when life gets you down / Warren W. Wiersbe.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Why us?

ISBN 978-0-8010-1405-5 (pbk.)

1. Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Theodicy. 3. Consolation. 4. Christian life. I. Wiersbe, Warren W. Why us? II. Title.

BV4909.W53 2012

248.8′6—dc23

2012000562

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are from The New English Bible. Copyright © 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture quotations marked Phillips are from The New Testament in Modern English, revised edition—J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Permission to quote from the following is gratefully acknowledged:

One Destiny by Sholem Asch. Copyright © 1945 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Copyright assigned to the estate of Sholem Asch.

Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World by Dorothy L. Sayers. Copyright © 1969 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

“A Masque of Reason” from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1945 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1969 by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Copyright © 1973 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Publishers.

“If—” by Rudyard Kipling. Copyright © 1910 by Doubleday & Company, Inc. Reprinted from Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, Definitive Edition, by permission of the National Trust and Macmillan Company of London & Basingstoke and Doubleday & Company, Inc.