God Does His Best Work With Empty

It’s amazing how heavy the weight of emptiness can feel, how much room it can take up in our souls, how much pain can be caused by something that isn’t even there. But while we may see the emptiness of our lives as our greatest problem, that’s not how God sees it. When God looks into the empty places of our lives, He sees His greatest opportunity. God does His best work in the emptiness of our . . .

Insatiable craving for things that don’t satisfy
Relational disappointments and loneliness
Frustrated search for purpose and meaning
Relentless desire for comfort and security
Ongoing struggle to live with loss and unfulfilled dreams

Join Nancy Guthrie in discovering why emptiness has never been, and never will be, a problem to God. As Nancy pulls back the curtain on God’s work to fill up emptiness as revealed throughout the Bible, you’ll experience page after page of grace and hope that your emptiness can and will be filled. You’ll begin to see that God really does do His best work with empty as he fills it with Himself.

What others are saying about the book:

"You must read this book. Too many people around you are grieving hard yet are clueless as to how to fill the emptiness. Be warned: this impossibly personal work treads on delicate territory (who among us is an expert in helping the anguished deal well with loss?). Take heart, though; you have a seasoned, skilled guide in Nancy Guthrie. She has ingested the bitter bread of loss, which makes her counsel wise, wonderful, and best of all, authentic. In God Does His Best Work with Empty, my treasured friend shares insights that are grounded in Scripture and filled with tested-and-tried-compassion. Best of all, she knows Jesus well and understands how to gently point hurting people his way. So read it. And let its wisdom push you out into a hurting world where only Christ can fill those who are empty."

- Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends International Disability Center

"Nancy Guthrie is one of my favorite writers, not least of all because she’s saturated with God’s Word. She affirms Jesus without ever offering cheap 'get-on-with-it' advice that is code for 'stop grieving, it makes us uncomfortable.' With honesty and transparency, Nancy affirms gospel truth that encourages, corrects, and empowers us to embrace the blood-bought goodness and joy of Jesus. This is a terrific book."

- Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven and founder/director of Eternal Perspective Ministries

"We all want to be skilled in connecting what we feel with what God says. We certainly can feel empty; the challenge is to hear God speak in Scripture to this emptiness and to hear him speak often, with characteristic gentleness and the element of surprise and newness. Nancy is, I think, the perfect person to make those connections for us."

- Ed Welch, counselor and senior faculty, CCEF

"Nancy’s writing is like a familiar pair of hands tenderly taking hold of our faces and an empathetic set of eyes, locking with ours to remind us of what has never stopped being true. Her words do the important work of acknowledging our ache, then lifting our gaze to the cross and the hope of eternity it secures for us. This book does that work patiently, thoughtfully, and expertly."

- Rachel Myers, cofounder of She Reads Truth

"Nancy Guthrie is always a source of sound wisdom for me, and God Does His Best Work with Empty is no different. Offering deep sympathy and life-giving hope, this book will strengthen your heart in the weary places and point you to the joy and promise of being filled by Christ."

- Laura Wifler, cofounder of Risen Motherhood; podcaster; coauthor of Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments

Title

God Does His Best Work With Empty
Author(s)

Nancy Guthrie
ISBN

9781496439697
Format

Hardback
Publisher

Tyndale
Topic

Life's Challenges
Audience

Adults
Pages

224
Published

09/01/2020

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Nancy Guthrie

Nancy Guthrie and her husband, David, have a son, Matt, who works with his dad creating kids musicals for the church through Little Big Stuff Music. They also have a daughter, Hope, and a son, Gabriel, who were born with a rare genetic disorder called Zellweger Syndrome and each lived six months.

Nancy offered many of the lessons she learned from the loss of two of their children in her first book, Holding On to Hope: A Pathway of Suffering to the Heart of God which was published in 2002. Since then, Nancy has continued to write books that reflect her compassion for hurting people and her passion for applying God's Word to real life. Her desire to grow in her understanding of God's Word prompted her to pursue graduate work in theological studies via Reformed Theological Seminary Global which is ongoing. She and her husband, David, host weekend Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of a child. She speaks regularly at conferences nationally and internationally, and is a regular contributor to The Gospel Coalition, including hosting the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast.

Most recently, Nancy has been focused on her mission to infiltrate women’s Bible study in the local church with biblical theology. “I regularly have women who have worked their way through all five of my Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament Bible Study series tell me that those studies helped them to see connections in the Bible they had never seen before. And that thrills me,” says Nancy. She wrote Even Better Than Eden to take women a step further into understanding some of the major themes than run from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible. And in the Biblical Theology Workshops for Women she is now offering around the country and internationally, she is training women how to trace these themes for themselves. “The workshops are energetic and fun and women leave telling me that their minds are spinning with all they’ve learned, and their hearts are warmed by seeing Christ in new ways. Nothing could make me happier.”

Nancy and her husband, David, make their home in Nashville, Tennessee.

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