Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion Book

I always wonder what it means to be in a war; and what it means to preach during a war. It must be a terrible feeling. Yet again, what is a better reminder on the temporality of life than a context of such?

On another level, was thinking can we effectively share on war and for that matter, the problem of evil (ie. to put it painfully simple, why does God allow evil), if we haven't gone through war ourselves?

There's a difference I suppose - the same way most people would agree that C S Lewis' A Grief Observed is better-written than his Problem of Pain.

And this book is different in that it does not see its theme as a cold academic subject, but written before the outbreak of the second world war, is an address to anxious minds and worried hearts, with the writer himself facing the same uncertainties and preaching with background of the sounds of nazi bombers.

And it starts differently, answering the question posed on the book cover only in the fourth chapter. The first chapter talks about unanswered prayers, the second about our reactions to unexpected circumstances in life (quoting a seldom-expounded Judges 13:22-23), the third on the mystery of God's providence, the fourth addressing the problem of evil direct (from a Christian perspective, ie essentially, sin being the chief cause of everything) and the fifth, Roman 8:28.

To some, it might be a roundabout way of answering the question; yet I guess to many, there is no other way that is more direct. Eventually a reader who really reads this book with a keen eye is not struggling with an intellectual question like what I always do. He is fighting with unanswered pleas and unexpected difficulties in his life. Think in that sense, this book serves such a bitter and doubtful soul well.
And that's why I like books written by D. Martyn Lloyd-jones. He has a way of expounding bible verses and applying them to life without diluting doctrines. (For that matter, his Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure is one of the most uplifting books I've ever read.)

And his sermons too… Anyway this is one of his shortest books if one cannot really find time to read. 126 pages and of very comfortable font-size, it is a nice book to read over a cup of coffee on a lazy afternoon.