Combing through numerous sources, Guthrie has composed a book containing a wide variety of instruction concerning suffering. Using voices both ancient and contemporary, Guthrie shows how the problem of pain has been addressed by Christians who have not only dealt with this academically but personally as well. Although most chapters are far too brief to get into any real depth, this also serves to make for bite-sized reading that may be easier to digest for some.  

By definition, pain is unpleasant, so unpleasant as to force us to withdraw our finger from boiling water, lightning-fast. Yet it is that very quality which saves us from destruction. Unless the warning signal demands response, we might not heed it. [25]

Something is wrong with a life of wars and violence and insults. We need help. He who wants to be satisfied with this world, who wants to think the only reason for living is to enjoy a good life, must do so with cotton in his ears; the megaphone of pain is a loud one. [26]

The scene of Christ’s death, with the sharp spikes and the wrenching thud as the cross was dropped into the ground, has been told so often that we, who shrink from a news story on the death of a race horse or of baby seals, do not flinch at its retelling. It was a bloody death, an execution quite unlike the quick, sterile ones we know today: gas chambers, electric chairs, hangings. This one stretched on for hours in front of a jeering crowd. [27]

Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Yet we bitterly complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity. In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. [29]

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