Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast where we're all about sound doctrine for everyday people.

I'm your host Kosti Hen and on this episode we have part three of our series with

Tim Challey's on suffering and grief and loss.

Episodes one and two were incredible, insightful.

They were biblical and certainly impactful and encouraging.

I've asked him to join us for this third and final episode to talk about how

we grow closer to the Lord even in the midst of what would be the unthinkable, the thing that people don't want to experience and it's the loss of a

dear close loved one. Tim thank you so much for being on the For the Gospel

podcast for this series and this episode.

I'm glad to be back.

All right well you have said it before

it's possible to love God more after loss than before.

I'm gonna play the cynical slash uncertain friend here.

Like how is that possible?

Don't you feel like a part of you died the day that Nick was lowered physically in the grave.

Don't you feel like there's this part of you you'll never have back.

How can you love God more and feel more spiritual closeness to him?

I think the key is that God reveals himself to us in certain ways in our sorrow that we haven't

yet experienced in our joys. And so it's in those times of sorrow that God comes through on all these promises

he makes. It's in our sorrows that we get to see God as the good shepherd who truly does lead us through the value of the shadow of death.

You may not have noticed in Psalm 23, David is speaking about God, but it's when he's in the valley of the Shadow of Death that he

starts speaking to God. So God is so present with him there. Now you are with me,

...