Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Trusting God in the Midst of Suffering Meet Sherif

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Trusting God in the Midst of Suffering Meet Sherif · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Things were fine.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: We were married, happy, we had one daughter, and God
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: blessed us with a second. And when I heard the news,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the first news about Nelly and with the f W,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: with the first reports from the doctor, I was hopeless
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: and I'm just hearing bad things, bad things, and I
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: was kind.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Of preparing myself, well.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I will she she will, she would be God. My
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: name is Streif Alta Fahim. I'm from Alexandra, Egypt, and
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I was born here and I lived all my life here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm married to Marie Anne.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a lecturer at Alexander School of THEOLOGYSD. When Alie
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: was born, Marie Anne told me this, well, she's not
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: eating well, she live, something is wrong with her.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I told her don't worry.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Let's we'll go to the doctor and thinks we will
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: see maybe she has something. He did the echo and
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: he said, well, these girls has a big problem in
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: her heart. She has a VSD and she is a
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: heart patient. She needs to do a surgery and you
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: need to keep an eye over her all of her
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: life if she lives. And I looked at Marianna that
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: day and she was weeping. She can't believe that this
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: is happening to us. We didn't understand what what what
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: did that? And we felt kind of totally totally weak,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: totally unable to do anything. Then suddenly we got this
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: phone call when she was ten months, people from us
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: well as They said, come quickly with your with your
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: child because a team is coming for a week to
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: do some hard surgeries for a few cases.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Well, good news.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: They put us in the hospital, They start to do
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: some some tests, getting ready for the surgery, and then
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: they said, well, we have many cases and we have
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: only one week, and the team they can only do
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: number of surgeries, so we will do the most the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: most urgent first. And I told them, what if the
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: time passed and the team finished the days here and
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: they have to go back and we are not we
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: are not chosen to do the surgery. They said, well
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: then you'll go away. So we had we had six
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: days just just wait to say if you will go
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to the surgeon or not.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And I've been at that time praying, why why is
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: this happening? Why did we come all this way? Why
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: did you give me this hope, this small hope? What's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: going on?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And I have my wife, I want to comfort her
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: and at the same time, I need someone to comfort me.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I'm very weak to comfort her. Then in the third
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: day they said Nellie is doing the operation or the
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: surgery the following day.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: But the day.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Before there was a father with a boy in the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: same age with the same problem, and they did the
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: surgery for him before Nelly, and he didn't make it.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: He died in the surgery, same age, same problem. And
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: we saw them giving the body to the to the father.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: M hm m hm. And we saw have the father
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: who's weeping for his childhood. They make it. And Marie
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Anne told me, are we going to give them Nelly
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: or not? I told her we came this far.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And she's dying in two months anyway.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So we handed her.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And we said to the Lord, look, it's you have
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: given her to us, and if you want to take.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Her, you can take her.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: The Bible is full of examples that show God's providence.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: He's just big in the Bible. And the story of
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Joseph is very rich. When I think of of Joseph's
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: life and the experience that we had, I see some
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: common things. Joseph was the young son of an old
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: man named Jacob, with ten older brothers, and he was
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the favorite one for his father, Jacob, and this created
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: at tension between him and his brothers to the point
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that they sold him as a slave.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: He went to Egypt as.
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  Speaker 2: A slave to a very important man in the country,
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  Speaker 2: being very faithful servant there.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yet, this man's wife tried to.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Tempt Joseph to have an affair with him, but Joseph refused,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and again this didn't end very well. Joseph was thrown
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to the jail. People forgot him. It's heartbreaking being sold
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: by the closest person to you. I know that there
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: were some frictions between him and his brothers, definitely, but
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: said their brother when we read the Sorry Joseph, God
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: is not speaking to him. Joseph must be thinking, where
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: are you, What are you doing? Why are you silent?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: My brothers are selling me. I would lose my freedom forever.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: I really slave. Yet God was doing something. Pharaoh dreamed
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: a dream and he asked for someone to interpret that dream.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: He went to Pharaoh interpreting the dream, and Pharaoh trusted him,
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  Speaker 2: and that's.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: How God took Joseph, not just in a.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Place similar to where he was in his father's house,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: but much much greater, the second most important person all
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: over the world. What's the journey he's suffering. He had
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: very hard experience, so it was kind of preparation molding.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: He didn't know any many things about the Lord and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: about himself, so do I. He just became a stronger
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: man instead of being Daddy's boy.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: We became a stronger as well.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Dally was scheduled to do the surgery at nine am.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I said, Torrian, when we have to just go away
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: from the hospital.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: We went even to the nile. We took kind of
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: a tribune the right to her. We have nothing to do.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And then we returned back and Marie Anne met the
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: door and she asked him is she okay? He said,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: is it Nelly? And she said yes. She said, don't worry,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: don't worry.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: She's fine. She is fine, and we were thank you Lord.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: The now the surgery is done.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: That is involved or controlling every single thing that's happening,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: good and bad everything. This is what it means for
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that to be sovereign. That's providence. In joseph life was
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: not just about Joseph becoming in a good place, but
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: about confirming Joseph maturing Joseph to be in the image
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: of Christ, which is much more important. We pray together
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: and lot Me and my wife at that time we
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: came very close together. During these ten days. Our relationship,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: even as a husband.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And wife, became different.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: The way we look to the Lord became different, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: God healed us from some of our selfishness.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Being happy with our children, young couple.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So God was It was maturing us to not just
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: think of ourselves, but to think of others. We would
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: learn how to sympathize with others. So He was strengthing ess.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Joseph said, one time, you meant.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It for evil, and God God meant it this evil
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: for good. I would say the same.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: In our experience, God was conforming me and my wife
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to be like Christ.