My fourth miscarriage flattened me. I couldn’t believe it. I’d buried an infant son a few years earlier and was unprepared for yet another loss. I’d finally started to feel like myself again after Paul’s death, but the miscarriage left me bewildered and unsure of what I could trust.

Months before, my husband and I had planned to go on a retreat to the Cove in Asheville, North Carolina, but I miscarried two days before the conference. Needless to say, I didn’t want to go. Add to that, the retreat was on the book of Job — and I felt too much like Job already. But I went anyway, and as John Piper began teaching on the first two chapters, my outlook radically changed. During those few days immersed in Job, God reoriented my life.

At the end of the weekend, I saw how much of my faith had been Scotch-taped to God’s blessings. I had valued God not for who he was but for what he’d given me. As God took away the things I treasured, I had pulled away from him, wondering why he would let the losses happen to me. But as I studied the book of Job, I saw that God was still worthy of my worship, even in my losses.

Will Job Curse God in Suffering?

The book begins by telling us about Job, a wealthy and righteous man who feared God and turned away from evil. When Satan enters God’s throne room, the Lord points out Job’s virtue. The devil responds,

Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face. (Job 1:9–11)

Satan proclaims that Job loves God not for who God is, but because of what God has given him. The Lord is confident in Job’s faithfulness, so he permits Satan to touch whatever Job has, so long as he does not harm Job himself.

And so disaster comes, in a flood. Messengers are suddenly standing in line to tell Job about one calamity after another. Everything Job has is destroyed. His property. His servants. His livestock. Even his children. In one fateful day, everything is gone. Job goes from one of the wealthiest men in the East to one of the poorest.

Amazingly, however, Job responds not with anger or turning away, but with humility and worship as he blesses the Lord (Job 1:21). Job’s magnificent response decimates Satan’s initial premise, but the devil refuses to concede defeat, this time maintaining Job’s allegiance was tied to his physical well-being. So, God gives Satan permission to afflict Job’s body, so long as he spares his life. Soon, Job’s body is covered with disgusting sores, but he still refuses to speak evil against God (Job 2:9–10).

God Is the Reward

These initial chapters of Job have taught me many important truths, truths that continue to shape my life. First, when we worship and trust God in trial, we declare that God is more valuable than anything he gives us.

“When we worship and trust God in trial, we declare that God is more valuable than anything he gives us.”

God, not our earthly blessings, is the ultimate object of our delight. Job continued to trust God after everything he had was destroyed, declaring, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). While this response speaks highly of Job, it speaks far more highly of God. God is as worthy of our praise in times of loss, pain, and scarcity as he is in times of fruitfulness and abundance.

This first truth undid me. I saw how linear my functional theology was — if I worshiped God and obeyed him, I expected him to give me what I wanted. And if I remained faithful through one big trial, he wouldn’t keep letting me suffer. In my mind, the reward for following Jesus was a prosperous, fruit-filled, blessing-laden, trouble-free life. But as I saw in Job, God himself is the reward. When we turn away from God in suffering, questioning his love and care, we are agreeing with Satan — that God’s value is tied to the material blessings he gives us. And that is an immeasurable assault on God’s worth.

The Heavens Are Watching

Second, Job taught me that my response to suffering matters. The book takes us into the throne room of God, where we see that the angels and demons, the unseen world, are watching what is happening on earth. They see our responses. When we respond to trials and loss with worship and praise, we are demonstrating God’s value to the heavenly realms.

God intends that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10). The rulers and authorities in the heavenly places learn about God and his wisdom, in part, by watching us. Though we may feel that we are suffering in obscurity, we are never alone. Our struggles are being seen by countless heavenly beings, so the stakes are higher than we think, and our calling is greater than we can imagine.

Through our faithfulness in trials, we show the unseen world that God himself is more precious than anything he gives or takes away.

Good Purposes in Suffering

Though we may not know why we are suffering, we do know there is always a reason. Everything in our life ultimately comes through the hands of God. Satan cannot touch us without God’s permission. And we know that, in Christ, the God who knows all our sorrows and holds all our tears in a bottle is always for us (Psalm 56:8; Romans 8:31). Though God never told Job why he was suffering, Job knew he must have had a reason. He knew God could be trusted.

We know that Job’s suffering came in part because God trusted him. God knew that Job’s faith would come forth like gold (Job 23:10), albeit refined by fire (1 Peter 1:7), and that God would be glorified through it. So our suffering may be entrusted to us by God to display his glory.

Suffering is a great revealer of what we value and what we cling to. God’s value is not in the gifts that he gave Job, though they were many. God’s value lies in who he is — and often it is in the taking away of gifts that we see him most clearly. Job knew God before his calamity, but in suffering he saw God in a new and more profound way. And that changed him.

How Will You Receive Suffering?

After hearing the message of Job that weekend, I was convinced I needed to trust God with what I could not see. I needed to put the glory of God above my glory. I needed to praise God through loss and pain, highlighting his worth and declaring that he is more precious than anything he might give me.

“God is as worthy of our praise in times of loss, pain, and scarcity as he is in times of fruitfulness and abundance.”

The truths I learned about God through Job have carried me through single parenting, an unwanted separation and divorce, and my current declining health, which could end in quadriplegia. Without these truths, I would have turned inward, giving in to doubt and despair. With them, I can turn to the Lord with gratitude for his unending love and presence, even when the worst happens to me.

How will you respond to suffering? Will you see it as a sign that God has abandoned you? Will you curse God and walk away, convinced that he doesn’t exist or doesn’t care? Or will you bless God even in great pain, and trust that he has a purpose, maybe ten thousand purposes, for your pain, even if you cannot see any of them?

Such trust will deepen your love for God and bind you to him with cords that nothing and no one can sever.

Audio Transcript

Faith and hope — we need them both. But what exactly is the difference between them? It’s a new question today, and it comes from Kelly in Chickamauga, Georgia. “Pastor John, I share your passion for the intentionality of words. I have a question about two words in Scripture — namely, faith and hope. First Peter 1:21 says that Christ’s work was ‘so that your faith and hope are in God.’ My initial understanding was that faith is rooted in past grace — namely, the cross. But hope is rooted in future grace, specifically the revelation of Jesus (1 Peter 1:13). However, Hebrews 11:1 and 1 Peter 1:21 seem to define faith as something rooted in the future, while also distinguishing it from hope. So, Pastor John, can you help me understand the distinction then between faith and hope?”

Well, I’m glad Kelly shares my enthusiasm for the intentionality of words because I really believe words are dumb things until a meaner gives them an intention. So, that’s a good way to ask the question, and there are few things I think about more than the nature of faith and hope and how they relate to each other in the Christian life. So this is right in my present wheelhouse. I love thinking about this.

Here’s my understanding of the similarity and difference between biblical faith and biblical hope — and that’s really important to say biblical because the world has all kinds of meanings that they give to faith and hope. And I just want to ask, “What does the Bible mean by saving faith and hope?”

Hope: Future Confidence

Hope, as it is used in the Bible for the distinctive experience of Christian hope, is always a confidence concerning the future. It’s a confidence, not a finger-crossing wish. So that separates the Christian hope from most other uses of hope in the English language. Romans 5:5 says, “Hope does not put us to shame.” It is rock-solid, sure. You can be confident. That’s Christian hope, and it’s always future-oriented.

A key text would be Romans 8:24–25: “In this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” When we say that hope does not see what it hopes for, the reason it doesn’t see it is because it hasn’t happened yet. It’s future. “We wait for it with patience.” So that’s the distinctive mark of hope: it is always future-oriented and consists in a firm confidence of what we are hoping for — not just a wish.

Faith: Personal, Treasuring Trust

Now faith, on the other hand, is the bigger concept. It includes everything that we say biblically about hope, but it is more. Now that probably is going to surprise a lot of people. It’s a risky statement — that everything we can say about hope is in faith, but that it’s more. But I think that’s a true statement. I think it’s fair to say that biblical hope is biblical faith in the future tense. If you are focusing on faith as a faith that something will happen in the future, it is virtually the same as biblical hope. But faith involves more than confidence that something that God has promised will happen in the future. It is that; that’s why I say hope is in faith — it’s part of what faith is. But it’s more.

“Biblical hope is biblical faith in the future tense.”

The main distinction between Christian faith and Christian hope is that faith is in a substantial way a trusting relationship with a person. Faith says to Christ, “I trust you, not just your promises. You are a reliable person. You are a trustworthy person.” Now, that trust may often be future-oriented. We may mean in that moment, “I trust you to keep your word about this afternoon, taking care of me.” That’s faith, and it’s hope.

But in a specific moment, that trust doesn’t have to mean something future-oriented. It might mean that Christ has just said, “I died for you two thousand years ago. I bore your sins, John Piper, two thousand years ago. I absorbed my Father’s wrath for you two thousand years ago.” And I, listening to that, look him in the eye and say, “I believe you. I believe you. I trust you” — meaning, “What you have just said about the past I believe.” Hope doesn’t say that.

Of course, that has massive implications for future life, right? But faith isn’t only future-oriented; it is person-oriented in a significant way. And the mark of the relationship with the person is trust — a receiving, treasuring trust. But beyond this distinction, the Bible presents hope in God and faith in God in ways that are scarcely distinguishable.

Tasting Coming Joy

For example, when Psalm 42 says, “Hope in God,” I have leaned on this in my discouragement so many times. “Hope in God, John Piper. You shall again praise him, your help and your God.” That act — what the psalm is calling me to do — of hoping in God in the midst of my trouble is hardly distinguishable from trusting God. Hope in that psalm is, I would argue, virtually identical to faith in God as it relates to the future.

Now, Hebrews 11:1 is the place where we see this interweaving of faith and hope as close as they get, perhaps. It says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” And, yes, I do think substance rather than assurance is the most helpful, accurate translation. That would require another podcast to give a reason for why that is and how the word hypostasis is used elsewhere in Hebrews. That’s another issue, but just go with it for now. I think that’s the right translation.

Here’s what I think it means. It speaks “of things hoped for.” In other words, there’s a reality in the future that God has promised and, in some measure, has revealed to us as precious — worth living for, worth dying for. And we are hoping to obtain it. That is, we have strong confidence that God will grant us this great blessing of experiencing fully what we are now hoping for in the future.

“Faith is the experience of the substance of future reality known, believed, tasted, and cherished now.”

Now, Hebrews 11:1 says that the substance of that future thing hoped for — that future reward or blessing — some substantial, essential element of it is experienced now in what he calls faith. Faith is the experience of the substance of that future reality known, believed, tasted, and cherished now.

Let me illustrate that with Hebrews 12:2. The writer says, “Jesus . . . for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” So God has assured Jesus that on the other side of the cross, on the other side of suffering and death, there would be a great joy to inherit. He could see it just over the horizon, and he hoped for it. And in that sense, it was one of those things hoped for from Hebrews 11:1.

I would argue that in the garden of Gethsemane, and even on the cross, Jesus was sustained — he endured — by tasting already the substance of that thing hoped for. He tasted something of that future joy that was set before him. And Hebrews 11:1 calls that experience faith. So, I would say in Hebrews 11:1 it is virtually impossible to completely distinguish faith and hope. The one is part of the other.

Faith and Hope Forever

Let’s look at one last text to show how close faith and hope are in the New Testament. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:6–7, “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” So one dimension or element of faith is that it embraces as real things you can’t see — like the risen Lord Jesus. And Paul says, “We are away from the Lord. He’s in heaven; we’re on earth. We can’t see him. But though we can’t see him, we love him. We trust him.” We walk by faith, not sight.

But that does not mean that when we do see him face-to-face at the second coming, we won’t walk by faith anymore. Only one dimension of faith is replaced by sight. Not every dimension of faith is replaced by sight. We will still trust him in heaven. We will still feed on him as the living bread in heaven. And the same can be said of hope. We walked by hope and not by sight. And yet, when sight is finally gained, not all hope will disappear. Heaven will forever be a place of faith and a place of hope because there will always be a future in heaven, a future to hope for, and there will always be Christ to trust. He will always be the feast of our hearts.

In summary, then, hope is faith in the future tense. And everything that can be said about hope biblically can be said of faith. But faith is more than hope because it involves trust in a person, which may have a backward dimension as well as a forward dimension.

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) was a Catholic mystic and military prodigy. At age seventeen, she was appointed commander in chief of the French army and led her forces to decisive victories over the English. Mark Twain — the pen name for Samuel Clemens (1835–1910) — was a world-famous writer who was also famous for being a grizzled skeptic, a religious agnostic, and an outspoken, scathing critic of the Christian faith.

So, who do you suppose was Twain’s historical hero? Yep, Joan of Arc. He even wrote a biographical novel about her astounding life, which I read with astonishment 25 years ago. Twain said the Maid of Orleans was “by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced” (452). To call this ironic is an understatement. What in the world did Twain see in Joan that inspired his supreme admiration?

Well, if you trust the historical records — and Twain did — there’s a lot to admire. Over a number of years, this anti-religious curmudgeon took his fine-toothed comb to the original court documents and the many firsthand witness statements that still exist in various European archives. And at the end of his research, he found it impossible to deny a few astounding claims:

This kind, humble, illiterate, teenage, peasant girl, with zero prior exposure to or training in the art of war, inexplicably possessed military genius.
With no prior leadership experience, she quickly became the most effective, courageous leader in the French military, and in a career that lasted barely a year, she achieved a series of unparalleled victories.
As someone given to frequent ecstatic spiritual experiences, she somehow exercised more levelheaded wisdom in decision-making than her sovereign or the high-ranking officials around her.

By all historically credible accounts, Joan was a phenom.

Sacrificial Love Conquers a Skeptic

But the Maid’s astonishing skill in warfare isn’t what most captured Twain’s heart. What captured his heart was Joan’s heart. In the “Translator’s Preface” at the beginning of his book, he wrote,

[Joan] was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a place in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any word or deed of hers. (20)

What Twain calls unselfishness the Bible more accurately calls love. We can see this more clearly in a description of Joan that Twain later wrote in an essay (included as an appendix in my edition of the book):

She was full of compassion: on the field of her most splendid victory she forgot her triumphs to hold in her lap the head of a dying enemy and comfort his passing spirit with pitying words; in an age when it was common to slaughter prisoners she stood dauntless between hers and harm, and saved them alive; she was forgiving, generous, unselfish, magnanimous; she was pure from all spot or stain of baseness. (451)

Four centuries after her death, it seems Joan of Arc achieved another victory: she conquered a jaded skeptic. She made Mark Twain a believer, not in the existence of the true God, but in the existence of Christlike, sacrificial love. He saw in Joan a person who actually loved God supremely and followed what she believed was his will with pure, childlike faith, all while seeking to love her neighbor as herself — even when her neighbor was her enemy.

The Heart Has Its Reasons

Whether or not Joan of Arc was, in reality, as selfless and loving as Twain believed her to be is beside my point here. What’s remarkable is his admiration of the self-sacrificing love he saw in her. Why did it move him so deeply?

We can ask this another way. If Christianity isn’t real, and the world is governed merely by pitiless naturalistic forces, then it strikes me that Joan of Arc ought not to be glorified as a historical hero, but pitied as an example of what the real world does to those whose love ethic is informed by a delusion. Twain would have known this, but it appears he couldn’t help himself. Why?

I believe it’s because, as Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know” (Pensées, thought 423). Let’s let Pascal expound a little more on what he meant:

We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is in this last way that we know first principles; and reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them. (thought 282)

As Twain applied his reason to the claims of Christianity, he found numerous reasons to be skeptical. Having been raised in the Christian tradition, he knew the Bible well. He knew Jesus’s commandment that Christians were to sacrificially love one another as Christ had sacrificially loved them (John 13:34), and he took cynical delight in pointing out ways professing Christians had failed miserably to keep that commandment. For he knew that “anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).

But in Joan, it seems to me, Twain’s heart discerned a truth, a first principle, his reason could not refute: “Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). In this case, Twain’s heart was better than his head. Being an image-bearer of God, unbeliever though he was, he recognized the real thing when he saw it. Something deep inside, the part of him designed to admire and be drawn to sacrificial love, couldn’t help but find such love in a real person captivating.

By This All People Will Know

Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Why? Because deep down, their hearts acknowledge a truth their reason may deny: God is love. And so, while “no one has ever seen God,” people intuitively recognize that, “if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). This is why years ago I wrote,

Christlike, sacrificial, forbearing, hopeful, enduring love is the greatest apologetic to the existence and nature of God. It is more compelling than brilliant, well-reasoned arguments (which can be brilliantly countered) and more powerful than signs and wonders (which can be counterfeited, Matthew 24:24). And any Spirit-filled Christian, man or woman, of any ethnicity, social class, age demographic, intellectual capacity, or spiritual gifting, can demonstrate love.

They will know we are Christians by our love. This is why Jesus made love his last and greatest commandment for Christians. And it’s why, when all is said and done, Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Because God is love.

‘Best of All My Books’

Near the end of his life, Twain said, “I like Joan of Arc best of all my books, and it is the best; I know it perfectly well.” The irony of this has not been lost on many of his ardent fans. As one expert on Twain has observed,

By the time he’s writing [Joan of Arc] he’s not a believer. He is anti-Catholic, and he doesn’t like the French. So he writes a book about a French-Catholic martyr? Ostensibly, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

No, but the heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. In spite of Twain’s anti-Christian bias, in spite of his anti-French bias, in spite of his anti-mystical bias, who became his historical hero? The French mystic warrior, who was, in his view, “the most noble life that was ever born into this world save only One.”

Save only One. That’s a notable qualification, given this grizzled skeptic’s religious views. I think it’s a haunting indicator that Twain perceived in Joan of Arc’s sacrificial love a type and shadow of the One who, like no other, laid his life down for his friends and enemies. And Twain couldn’t help but admire it. Because in his heart he knew there is no greater love than this (John 15:13).