Good News at Rock Bottom E-Book

Ray Ortlund

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 157

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Meeting the Man of Sorrows Where We Need Him Most We all long for a life worth living. So when we receive news of a frightening diagnosis, suffer heartbreaking loss in our family life, or get trapped in a cycle of our own sin, we might wonder about God. Where is he when we need him most? With wisdom from Isaiah 57:15, Good News at Rock Bottom helps readers discover that Jesus is hard to find in the comfortable lives we prefer. Instead, he meets us at rock bottom—where he is waiting for us with open arms.  With grace and empathy, author Ray Ortlund opens a door for readers to go deeper with God and get closer to faithful friends when life is hard to bear. You will discover that, at rock bottom, Jesus is more satisfying than any comfortable life without him. - Empathetic: Author Ray Ortlund meets readers with honesty and helps them fall into the arms of Christ amid the painful seasons of life - Appeals to Sufferers: Will resonate with anyone who has experienced betrayal, failure, loneliness, or wondered if God even cares - Ideal for Individual or Small-Group Use: Questions at the end of each chapter spur discussion with friends and reflection in one's own heart

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“I know pain, inside and out. I live intimately with its brutal assault, and at times it almost convinces me that all hope is lost. That’s when I reach out for the kind of rock-solid hope that is able to survive the worst of times. Honestly, it’s there. It’s available. And it’s meant for you. Ray Ortlund tenderly explains how to find and embrace it in his excellent book Good News at Rock Bottom. I love Ray’s style of writing—always accessible, believable, and gentle on the heart. The book you hold in your hands is extraordinary, and I envision that, by the last page, you will find the hope-filled release and relief you are yearning for.”

Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center

“Simeon had been waiting for the consolation of Israel, but what he found was Jesus (Luke 2:25), and that consolation from Christ soaks every page of this book. With understanding and tenderness, Ray Ortlund draws us back again and again to the all-sufficiency and matchless compassion of Christ. This is pastoral theology at its best—real, biblical, and deeply comforting.”

Sam Allberry, Associate Pastor, Immanuel Nashville; author, One with My Lord

“Whenever I feel I’m hitting rock bottom, Ray Ortlund is one of the first people I call. He doesn’t cheerily wave away pain. He’s seen what lurks in the darkness. Yet I always walk away hopeful and grateful and feeling alive again. That’s because he knows the light that shines in the darkness. Reading this piercing book, you will experience the counsel of one who knows how bad it can get and who can help you see how good it can be.”

Russell Moore, Editor in Chief, Christianity Today; author, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

“Ray Ortlund writes these words as a friend in the trenches with you, desperately needing God to be who he says he is in Isaiah 57:15. The night before I read this book, I was kept awake by loneliness, guilt, shame, and fear. The night after I read this, I was kept awake by the impossibility of processing how much God loves me. Good News at Rock Bottom was a love letter directly from God to me, through Ray. Trust me, read this! I’m already reading it again, with my wife and kids!”

Walker Hayes, singer; songwriter

“This gospel-saturated book has been so encouraging to me! I found myself nodding on every page as Ray Ortlund describes the pain of betrayal, the isolation of loneliness, the separation of sin, and the beautiful way God draws near to the brokenhearted. Ortlund underscores and illuminates this stunning truth: When we reach rock bottom, we find God is closer than we ever imagined and better than we ever dreamed. I highly recommend this book!”

Vaneetha Rendall Risner, author, Desperate for Hope and Walking through Fire

Good News at Rock Bottom

Crossway Books by Ray Ortlund

The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility

The Death of Porn Study Guide: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility

Good News at Rock Bottom: Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost

The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ

Isaiah: God Saves Sinners

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel

Proverbs: Wisdom That Works

You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches, with Sam Allberry

Good News at Rock Bottom

Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost

Ray Ortlund

Good News at Rock Bottom: Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost

© 2025 by Ray Ortlund

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, 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 for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates.

Cover design: David Fassett

First printing 2025

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked REB are taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

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

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9886-9 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9888-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9887-6

Names: Ortlund, Raymond C., Jr., author.

Title: Good news at rock bottom : finding God when the pain goes deep and hope seems lost / Ray Ortlund.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024023573 (print) | LCCN 2024023574 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433598869 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433598876 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433598883 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Gospels. | Christian life. | Depressed persons—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Anxiety—Religious aspects—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BS2555.55 .O87 2025 (print) | LCC BS2555.55 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/6—dc23/eng/20240911

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024023573

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024023574

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-01-28 11:29:10 AM

To

Immanuel Church

and

St. Patrick’s Anglican Church,

my dear friends in Christ

Contents

  Preface

1  Way Up High, Way Down Low

2  Betrayed

3  Trapped

4  Lonely

5  Dying

  Conclusion

  Acknowledgments

  General Index

  Scripture Index

Preface

Thank you for picking up this book. My plan here is to ask of you as little as I can and to give to you as much as I can. You have a busy life to live. But right now, while we are together, literally on the same page, let’s make the most of it.

Here is what I promise you: I will try to explain the gospel of Jesus honestly and helpfully for your needs. I will not lie to you. And I will try to believe the gospel honestly and helpfully for my own needs.

Here is what I ask of you: Give Jesus a chance. Allow for the possibility that the good news about him is relevant to what you really, really care about—maybe more relevant than you have ever dared to believe.

So, my honest thoughts, with your courageous openness—let’s see what happens.

This book began as a series of talks on Wednesday evenings at Immanuel Church, Nashville, in September 2023. Immanuel is a church where people can heal. It’s where I healed—and I was the pastor! So I wanted those talks to serve that gentle purpose. But still, I was surprised at the people’s response. Something special was happening there in that room, and it was not me. It was more than all of us put together. It was the Lord himself, with the healing touch only he can bring.

Now I hope this book brings some of that healing to you too, by his grace, wherever you are, whatever you’re facing.

And I wish I could give you a hug right now.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,

who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

“I dwell in the high and holy place,

and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Isaiah 57:15

1

Way Up High, Way Down Low

You don’t need to go looking for it. Sooner or later, it comes and finds you—something horrible, some experience unforeseeable and even unimaginable. It comes upon you. It lays hold of you. It changes you. And the reality you always understood to be your life—suddenly that life is gone for good. Now you’re stuck with a different reality, and not one you chose. It was forced upon you. And however it happened, things are different for you now. And not in a better way.

I’m sorry to be dredging up bad memories for you. But if we sit quietly before the Lord for a while, I believe our hearts can crack open to something new—strong hope, deep healing,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite.

So, please don’t close this book. I will be careful in everything I say. I have bad memories too.

What was it that came after you? Maybe it was betrayal. Someone won your heart. You trusted them, and you gave your heart away. But eventually, you found out they didn’t really mean it. You did mean it—way down deep, too. But they didn’t. Then you saw it, and it was a shock. To this day, the memory, the very thought, is still hard for you to bear. And they aren’t coming back to apologize—ever. But your heart is still broken.

Or maybe it was a betrayal of your own. Maybe you were the one who crossed a line, knowing it was wrong. You were reaching for a thrill, to escape your boring life. You felt you deserved something exciting for a change. You wanted to find out if you still had what it takes. But that sin you picked up in your hands to play with, just for a while—now it owns you. You’re trapped.

Or maybe it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe it’s just the way your life has unfolded. It’s like you’ve never found that place where you really belong, or that person you want to be with forever. Wherever you go, you feel like an outsider looking in. You don’t hate your life. You have a lot to be thankful for. But you’re lonely—every day.

Or maybe it’s loss. For example, as you age. You don’t just lose your job. You lose your youthful vigor, your very health. You’re not amazing anymore. You get tired just walking upstairs. And tomorrow will be more loss—maybe catastrophic loss. You look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Really? That’s me?” And any time now, your life will be over.

We could go on and on. There are many ways to hit rock bottom. But everyone goes there. Which means you and I have a lot in common. Our broken hearts can bring us together. That’s what I’m hoping for as you read this book.

We’re in This Together

Neither of us wants to spiral down into self-pity. That doesn’t help us, and it doesn’t honor Christ. What you and I do want is enough hope to keep going with dignity. We want to face life as it is, upheld by Christ. Yes, we suffer anguish along the way. But we want to feel loved by him, as only survivors can.

We accept, we deeply accept, that there is no easy way through this world. But we want to walk his way, all the way. He himself is living proof that the cross leads to resurrection. His is the only way into the life that is truly life, even at rock bottom—especially at rock bottom. Our pain has become too real to settle for any theoretical “salvation.” We’re staking everything now on Jesus being real to the real us.

What if we follow Jesus together, you there and me here? We can find, to our surprise, that it’s down at rock bottom where he finds us. In fact, the low place of loss and bewilderment and regrets and tears—he’s already down there. It’s where he dwells, where he awaits us and welcomes us.

It’s not so bad down at rock bottom with Jesus there. And some really great people are down there too—the best people I’ve ever met. Welcome to the party! We weep at this party, but we laugh too. We laugh a lot. And we don’t have to fake our joy. In fact, we wouldn’t go back to our above-average lives for anything. We feel the way Martin Luther did.

May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.1

There is a reason we talk about going to “a deeper place” with Christ. He meets us at our worst moments and our lowest defeats. He even takes us deeper than we thought we needed to go. If we could have found an easier way, we would have settled for it! But since it’s honest reality with Jesus we want, then the real us can be known only in the low place. Our false selves are exposed as frauds. It’s painful. But our selfish dreams fading away to nothing—that’s where Jesus surprises us with everything we really wanted all along. But he sure isn’t the cheerleader of the triumphant winners. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). He knows rock bottom firsthand. He is our good news at rock bottom.

The One Who Dwells with Us

What helps us most, when we need help urgently, is to discover who Jesus is for people like us. His wisdom is better than our escapism. What we want deep down is Jesus himself, with us, even us.

For example, Anselm, a theologian back in the eleventh century, had a conversation with himself one day. He dared to “change the subject” in his thoughts from his own turbulence to God. Anselm spoke bluntly to himself:

Come now, little man, flee for a moment from your preoccupations, escape for a while from your agitated thoughts. Put aside now your burdensome cares, and postpone your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a while to God, and rest a little in him. Enter into the resting place of your soul, shut out everything but God and what helps you to seek him. And after locking the door, seek him. Say now, O my whole heart, say now to God: “I seek your face. Your face, O Lord, I need.”2

Whatever happened next, I’m guessing Anselm went on to have a good day! In our hyper-busy lives today, it can be even harder to get close to God. But rock bottom opens that door. We’re finally desperate enough to shut the noise out and turn to him. We sure don’t get to that profound place while sipping ice-cold lemonade on a sunny beach at Kiawah Island, do we? But when our hearts are crying out, “Your face, O Lord, I need,” it’s because we’re in trouble. So thank you, Lord, for trouble.

C. S. Lewis said it well in one of his stories. Just this snippet of the dialogue makes the point:

“And what is this valley called?”

“We call it now simply Wisdom’s Valley; but the oldest maps mark it as the Valley of Humiliation.”3

The Bible is an old map. It is honest, and hopeful. It’s meant for real sufferers who wouldn’t mind getting their lives back and having a future again. What then does the Bible have to say to people like us?

Where God Meets Us

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,

who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

“I dwell in the high and holy place,

and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isa. 57:15)

Let’s do this: let’s pick that verse up in our hands, turn it over and over like a priceless jewel, and see its facets of ancient wisdom from different angles. We can also think of it like a piece of hard candy. We pop it into our mouths, swirl it around with our tongues, and enjoy all the flavors.

The healing powers of this one verse can flow down into the deepest crevices of anguish within us. My plan, then, is to stare at Isaiah 57:15 for a while in each chapter of this book. We will keep gaining new insights along the way.

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon has been quoted as saying, “It is folly to think the Lord provides grace for every trouble but the one you are in today.”4 We are never helped by looking over at someone else and thinking, “I wish I had their life. Mine is such a letdown.” The truth is, you cannot bear the burden of that wished-for life you’d gladly trade up to. Yes, it looks good. But it wasn’t shaped to fit you. You’d end up hating it. And by God’s grace, you can bear the burden of the actual life you’re living. He is lifting you into your true dignity and destiny. And on your way there, you’ll be encouraged by your fellow sufferers as they walk with you. I want this book to be one of those encouragements. If we savor Isaiah 57:15 for the rest of our lives, it will keep us going.

What, then, can we expect to happen, as the high and holy one dwells with us down at rock bottom?

First, let’s notice the obvious: Isaiah 57:15 is about God. And for good reason. Our painful experiences raise huge questions about God. Like, “Where was he when I needed him most?” And the Bible doesn’t always answer our questions. What it offers is a new way to hope and to worship—right where we are.5

For example, the first thing we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer is “Hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). See that God-first priority? But “hallowed be your name” isn’t the Lord implying, “I’ll get around to your