Ortlund Good News at Rock Bottom

Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-4335-9888-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Meeting the Man of Sorrows Where We Need Him Most We all long for a life worth living. So when we receive news of a frightening diagnosis, suffer heartbreaking loss in our family life, or get trapped in a cycle of our own sin, we might wonder about God. Where is he when we need him most? With wisdom from Isaiah 57:15, Good News at Rock Bottom helps readers discover that Jesus is hard to find in the comfortable lives we prefer. Instead, he meets us at rock bottom-where he is waiting for us with open arms.  With grace and empathy, author Ray Ortlund opens a door for readers to go deeper with God and get closer to faithful friends when life is hard to bear. You will discover that, at rock bottom, Jesus is more satisfying than any comfortable life without him. - Empathetic: Author Ray Ortlund meets readers with honesty and helps them fall into the arms of Christ amid the painful seasons of life - Appeals to Sufferers: Will resonate with anyone who has experienced betrayal, failure, loneliness, or wondered if God even cares - Ideal for Individual or Small-Group Use: Questions at the end of each chapter spur discussion with friends and reflection in one's own heart

Ray Ortlund is the president of Renewal Ministries, the pastor to pastors at Immanuel Church in Nashville, and a canon theologian with the Anglican Church in North America. He is the author of several books, including Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel; The Death of Porn; and the Preaching the Word commentaries on Isaiah and Proverbs. He is also a contributor to the ESV Study Bible. Ray and his wife, Jani, have been married for fifty years.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ortlund, Ray

Leseproben

1

Way Up High, Way Down Low

You don’t need to go looking for it. Sooner or later, it comes and finds you—something horrible, some experience unforeseeable and even unimaginable. It comes upon you. It lays hold of you. It changes you. And the reality you always understood to be your life—suddenly that life is gone for good. Now you’re stuck with a different reality, and not one you chose. It was forced upon you. And however it happened, things are different for you now. And not in a better way.

I’m sorry to be dredging up bad memories for you. But if we sit quietly before the Lord for a while, I believe our hearts can crack open to something new—strong hope, deep healing,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite.

So, please don’t close this book. I will be careful in everything I say. I have bad memories too.

What was it that came after you? Maybe it was betrayal. Someone won your heart. You trusted them, and you gave your heart away. But eventually, you found out they didn’t really mean it. You did mean it—way down deep, too. But they didn’t. Then you saw it, and it was a shock. To this day, the memory, the very thought, is still hard for you to bear. And they aren’t coming back to apologize—ever. But your heart is still broken.

Or maybe it was a betrayal of your own. Maybe you were the one who crossed a line, knowing it was wrong. You were reaching for a thrill, to escape your boring life. You felt you deserved something exciting for a change. You wanted to find out if you still had what it takes. But that sin you picked up in your hands to play with, just for a while—now it owns you. You’re trapped.

Or maybe it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe it’s just the way your life has unfolded. It’s like you’ve never found that place where you really belong, or that person you want to be with forever. Wherever you go, you feel like an outsider looking in. You don’t hate your life. You have a lot to be thankful for. But you’re lonely—every day.

Or maybe it’s loss. For example, as you age. You don’t just lose your job. You lose your youthful vigor, your very health. You’re not amazing anymore. You get tired just walking upstairs. And tomorrow will be more loss—maybe catastrophic loss. You look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Really? That’s me?” And any time now, your life will be over.

We could go on and on. There are many ways to hit rock bottom. But everyone goes there. Which means you and I have a lot in common. Our broken hearts can bring us together. That’s what I’m hoping for as you read this book.

We’re in This Together

Neither of us wants to spiral down into self-pity. That doesn’t help us, and it doesn’t honor Christ. What you and I do want is enough hope to keep going with dignity. We want to face life as it is, upheld by Christ. Yes, we suffer anguish along the way. But we want to feel loved by him, as only survivors can.

We accept, we deeply accept, that there is no easy way through this world. But we want to walk his way, all the way. He himself is living proof that the cross leads to resurrection. His is the only way into the life that is truly life, even at rock bottom—especially at rock bottom. Our pain has become too real to settle for any theoretical “salvation.” We’re staking everything now on Jesus being real to the real us.

What if we follow Jesus together, you there and me here? We can find, to our surprise, that it’s down at rock bottom where he finds us. In fact, the low place of loss and bewilderment and regrets and tears—he’s already down there. It’s where he dwells, where he awaits us and welcomes us.

It’s not so bad down at rock bottom with Jesus there. And some really great people are down there too—the best people I’ve ever met. Welcome to the party! We weep at this party, but we laugh too. We laugh a lot. And we don’t have to fake our joy. In fact, we wouldn’t go back to our above-average lives for anything. We feel the way Martin Luther did.

May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.1

There is a reason we talk about going to “a deeper place” with Christ. He meets us at our worst moments and our lowest defeats. He even takes us deeper than we thought we needed to go. If we could have found an easier way, we would have settled for it! But since it’s honest reality with Jesus we want, then the real us can be known only in the low place. Our false selves are exposed as frauds. It’s painful. But our selfish dreams fading away to nothing—that’s where Jesus surprises us with everything we really wanted all along. But he sure isn’t the cheerleader of the triumphant winners. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). He knows rock bottom firsthand. He is our good news at rock bottom.

The One Who Dwells with Us

What helps us most, when we need help urgently, is to discover who Jesus is for people like us. His wisdom is better than our escapism. What we want deep down is Jesus himself, with us, even us.

For example, Anselm, a theologian back in the eleventh century, had a conversation with himself one day. He dared to “change the subject” in his thoughts from his own turbulence to God. Anselm spoke bluntly to himself:

Come now, little man, flee for a moment from your preoccupations, escape for a while from your agitated thoughts. Put aside now your burdensome cares, and postpone your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a while to God, and rest a little in him. Enter into the resting place of your soul, shut out everything but God and what helps you to seek him. And after locking the door, seek him. Say now, O my whole heart, say now to God: “I seek your face. Your face, O Lord, I need.”2

Whatever happened next, I’m guessing Anselm went on to have a good day! In our hyper-busy lives today, it can be even harder to get close to God. But rock bottom opens that door. We’re finally desperate enough to shut the noise out and turn to him. We sure don’t get to that profound place while sipping ice-cold lemonade on a sunny beach at Kiawah Island, do we? But when our hearts are crying out, “Your face, O Lord, I need,” it’s because we’re in trouble. So thank you, Lord, for trouble.

C. S. Lewis said it well in one of his stories. Just this snippet of the dialogue makes the point:

“And what is this valley called?”

“We call it now simply Wisdom’s Valley; but the oldest maps mark it as the Valley of Humiliation.”3

The Bible is an old map. It is honest, and hopeful. It’s meant for real sufferers who wouldn’t mind getting their lives back and having a future again. What then does the Bible have to say to people like us?

Where God Meets Us

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,

who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

“I dwell in the high and holy place,

and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isa. 57:15)

Let’s do this: let’s pick that verse up in our hands, turn it over and over like a priceless jewel, and see its facets of ancient wisdom from different angles. We can also think of it like a piece of hard candy. We pop it into our mouths, swirl it around with our tongues, and enjoy all the flavors.

The healing powers of this one verse can flow down into the deepest crevices of anguish within us. My plan, then, is to stare at Isaiah 57:15 for a while in each chapter of this book. We will keep gaining new insights along the way.

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon has been quoted as saying, “It is folly to think the Lord provides grace for every trouble but the one you are in today.”4 We are never helped by looking over at someone else and thinking, “I wish I had their life. Mine is such a letdown.” The truth is, you cannot bear the burden of that wished-for life you’d gladly trade up to. Yes, it looks good. But it wasn’t shaped to fit you. You’d end up hating it. And by God’s grace, you can bear the burden of the actual life you’re living. He is lifting you into your true dignity and destiny. And on your way there, you’ll be encouraged by your fellow sufferers as they walk with you. I want this book to be one of those encouragements. If we savor Isaiah 57:15 for the rest of our lives, it will keep us going.

What, then, can we expect to happen, as the high and holy one dwells with us down at rock bottom?

First, let’s notice the obvious: Isaiah 57:15 is about God. And for good...