A couple of weeks ago Kirsty and I had the pleasure of heading away with our Church for a weekend away in Galston. It was a great time of fellowship, and time around the bible.

The weekend was themed around the topic of “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God”. Our speaker was Steve Covetz, Steve is the lead pastor at The Point Community Church.

Everyone will suffer at some point in their life. Suffering can take almost any form that you can think of, you could experience physical suffering, like a long term illness or something more short term. You can also experience persecution from others, which is also a form of suffering, and that persecution might even incorporate some kind of physical suffering. You can download all of the talks for free here.

I took a great amount away form the weekend, some of my notes are summarised below. (you can download my full notes here)

• Because God is Sovereign, suffering does not surprise him.
• Suffering is a by-product of sin entering the world. Jesus dying on the cross was a one in history event to deal with that sin, but we still wait to enter heaven, where suffering will be abolished.
• Just like in the exodus. Being a Christian is about being in the desert with 2 million people, with no food and no water, with impending danger, and being able to say to God, ‘I trust you’.
• If sin wasn’t a problem for God, then he wouldn’t be God worth following. A perfect holy, just, righteous God.
• In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus says that he will always be with us. This gives us confidence that we do not endure suffering without his knowledge.
• We can’t lie that our suffering is better or sufficient over Jesus Christ.