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    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God--and Joy
    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God--and Joy
    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God--and Joy
    Ebook71 pages57 minutes

    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God--and Joy

    By John Piper

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    About this ebook

    "It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the wise, strong hand of God to hold us, even when we have no strength to hold him."
    John Piper
    Even the most faithful, focused Christians can encounter periods of depression and spiritual darkness when joy seems to stay just out of reach. It can happen because of sin, satanic assault, distressing circumstances, or hereditary and other physical causes. In When the Darkness Will Not Lift, John Piper aims to give some comfort and guidance to those experiencing spiritual darkness.
    Readers will gain insight into the physical side of depression and spiritual darkness, what it means to wait on the Lord in a time of darkness, how unconfessed sin can clog our joy, and how to minister to others who are living without light. Piper uses real-life examples and sensitive narrative to show readers abundant reason to hope that God will pull them out of the pit of despair and into the light once again.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossway Books
    Release dateDec 14, 2006
    ISBN9781433520211
    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God--and Joy
    Author

    John Piper

     John Piper is founder and lead teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He served for thirty-three years as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the author of more than fifty books, including Desiring God; Don’t Waste Your Life; and Providence. 

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    • 3/5
      When the Darkness Will Not Lift by John Piper is a Christian book for those suffering with depression, or people aiding those who are suffering. It was an Amazon recommendation when I purchased another Christian book on depression.Here is the Amazon synopsis:John Piper offers insight into depression and spiritual darkness, and the Christian response to them. For sufferers and carers, he provides reason for hope that God will lift them out of despair and into the light.This is not a long book, only 79 pages. However, it did take me quite a while to read this book. Piper has some very helpful things to say, and he includes lots of quotes from famous people, such as John Newton and C.S. Lewis as well as many quotations from the Bible. Some comments I found related to me personally, such as the fighting to get out of bed when feeling down. It was also interesting to learn that sometimes in order to help ourselves we need to help others, that way we will experience God's grace.However, some of the quotes used were written in very old fashioned English so I struggled with some of the meanings. I don't like Piper's writing style either. I find it does not flow easily and sometimes his sentence structure throws me.All in all, this was a bit of a tough read but with some very helpful advice.7/10

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    When the Darkness Will Not Lift - John Piper

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    BOOKS BY JOHN PIPER

    God’s Passion for His Glory

    The Pleasures of God

    Desiring God

    The Dangerous Duty of Delight

    Future Grace

    A Hunger for God

    Let the Nations Be Glad!

    A Godward Life

    Pierced by the Word

    Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

    The Legacy of Sovereign Joy

    The Hidden Smile of God

    The Roots of Endurance

    The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God

    The Innkeeper

    The Prodigal’s Sister

    Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

    What’s the Difference?

    The Justification of God

    Counted Righteous in Christ

    Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

    The Supremacy of God in Preaching

    Beyond the Bounds

    Don’t Waste Your Life

    The Passion of Jesus Christ

    Life as a Vapor

    A God-Entranced Vision of All Things

    When I Don’t Desire God

    Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

    Taste and See

    Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

    God Is the Gospel

    Contending for Our All

    What Jesus Demands from the World

    When the

    DARKNESS

    Will Not Lift

    Doing What We Can

    While We Wait for God—and Joy

    JOHN PIPER

    IVP Books Imprint

    www.crossway.org

    When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God—and Joy

    Copyright © 2006 by Desiring God Foundation

    Published by Crossway Books

                   a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers

                   1300 Crescent Street

                   Wheaton, Illinois 60187

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

    Cover design: Josh Dennis

    Cover photo: iStock First printing 2007

    Printed in the United States of America

    Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author unless otherwise noted.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Piper, John, 1946–

    When the darkness will not lift : doing what we can while we wait for God and joy / John Piper.

        p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-876-7 (tpb)

      ISBN 10: 1-58134-876-2

    1. Depressed persons—Religious life. 2. Spiritual life—Christianity. 3. Expectation (Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Trust in God. 5. Patience—Religious aspects—Christianity. 6. Depression, Mental—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

    BV4910.34.P57   2006

    248.8'6—dc22                          2006026383

    To the memory of

    JOHN OWEN

    who has wakened hope for many

    in the darkness

    of perfectionistic despair

    CONTENTS

    INTRODUCTION: FAITH ALONE AND THE FIGHT FOR JOY

    1 THE DARKNESS OF MELANCHOLY

    2 WAITING IN DARKNESS, WE ARE NOT LOST AND NOT ALONE

    3 FOLD NOT THE ARMS OF ACTION

    4 DOES UNCONFESSED SIN CLOG OUR JOY?

    5 THE DARKNESS THAT FEEDS ON SELF-ABSORPTION

    6 LOVING THOSE WHO CANNOT SEE THE LIGHT

    DESIRING GOD—A NOTE ON RESOURCES

    WHEN THE DARKNESS

    WILL NOT LIFT

    Doing What We Can

    While We Wait for God—and Joy

    I waited patiently for the LORD.

    PSALM 40:1

    Weeping may tarry for the night,

    but joy comes with the morning.

    PSALM 30:5

    Ah my deare angrie Lord,

    Since thou dost love, yet strike;

    Cast down, yet help afford;

    Sure I will do the like.

    I will complain, yet praise;

    I will bewail, approve:

    And all my sowre-sweet dayes

    I will lament, and love.

    GEORGE HERBERT

    Bitter-sweet¹

    1 George Herbert, Bitter-sweet, from his collection titled The Temple (1633), quoted from: http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Bittersweet.html (accessed July 11, 2006).

    INTRODUCTION

    FAITH ALONE AND THE

    FIGHT FOR JOY

    1581348762_0012_003

    In addressing the topic of spiritual darkness, I am aware that I have put my oar in a very large sea. I rise from my desk and walk past a wall of books that speak more wisely than I on the care and cure of sad Christian souls. Just opening these volumes reminds me of how

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