Council from Habakkuk on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Dale Johnson and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified

Biblical Counselors, where we seek to provide biblical solutions to the problems that people

face.

This week on the podcast, I'm delighted to introduce you to a new voice in ACBC, Tom Sugimura.

I'm so grateful for this brother.

He serves as a pastor, church planting, mentor, and a professor of biblical counseling at the Master's University.

He's the author of the church behind

barbed wire and Habakkuk, God's answers to life's most difficult questions. He and his wife,

Amanda, are raising their four children in Southern California. Now, some of you may remember Tom

in his name. He spoke at our pre-conference this past year in 2021 in Hickory Grove.

And I'm so grateful for this brother and his service to ACBC and his work in Southern California, both in his church and at the Master's University.

Tom, I'm really interested in this topic. First of all, welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you, Dale. It's a joy to be here. Listen, I am so grateful for this conversation. It's always helpful for us.

Sometimes we get, as biblical counselors, sort of in the weeds about passages. And I'm not saying

that as a negative thing. It's a good thing. But oftentimes we forget to step back, look at the

broader context of a passage or a broader

context of a book and just to see the beauty of what God is weaving in and throughout the book.

And so I'm looking forward to how we're going to dive in to see counsel from this particular

Old Testament prophet.

And let's be honest, like are many of you out there making your councilees memorize

some passage from Habakkuk or one of the other so-called minor prophets? Probably not. So,

this is going to be a fun exercise. And I want to start here with talking about suffering. Habakkuk's

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