Title: David and Absalom
Scripture: 2 Sam 16:5-14
Speaker: Ben Beasley, BenB@cckc.church

“Suffering has a history, and it helps to know it. The difficulties that come into our lives aren’t arbitrary intrusions; they’re elements in a complex web of interconnecting sins and mercies. This doesn’t mean that we can diagram lines of causation or responsibility in suffering. What we need to know is that suffering is neither an impersonal fate nor a cut-and-dried moral punishment. We’re implicated in a world of sin, sometimes ours and sometimes others’, and therefore in a world of suffering.” - Eugene Peterson, Leap Over A Wall

> Suffering humbles us.

“He faced the truth that his basic identity wasn't “king” but “sinner” and that he could live only by God’s mercy. Shimei’s curses peeled all the royal veneer off David and exposed his soul…He let the suffering bring him into the presence of the God of mercy and grace and love.”
- Eugene Peterson, Leap Over A Wall

> Suffering leads us to pray.

​​I only talk to God when I need a favor
And I only pray when I ain't got a prayer
So, who the hell am I, who the hell am I
To expect a Savior, oh
If I only talk to God when I need a favor?
But God, I need a favor
- “Need a Favor.”

> Through suffering, we find compassion for others