At the end of the service a few weeks ago, we together sang a song called, It is Well.

We sang the line, “It is well with my soul” over and over again, and as I was singing, I was thinking that this is probably on one of the most difficult things we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

Sure, it is well with my soul if life is going well. If I am at the top of my game, yes!, it is well with my soul. But what if life is not going well, what if I am not doing well… is it still well with my soul?

In his book Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God, Tim Challis shares his personal pain over the death of his son and frames it in sound theology.

I was moved by his Manifesto, the profession of his faith that as a father he will accept his son's death as God's will and that God's providence will and does give them the strength to live into the future.

It is so powerful, and so challenging I have adapted it as my own.

I have included Challis’ manifest here, however you will notice that I have taken out the personal bits about his son. Perhaps it can give you ideas or words, as it has me, that you can adopt as your own as we attempt to be faithful in even the most difficult of circumstances. And may it be well with your soul.

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By faith I will accept ________ as God’s will, and by faith accept that God’s will is always good. By faith I will be at peace with Providence, and by faith at peace with its every decree.

By faith I will praise God in the taking as I did in the giving, and by faith receive from his hand this sorrow as I have so many joys. I will grieve but not grumble, mourn but not murmur, weep but not whine.

Though I will be scarred by______, I will not be defined by it. Though it will always be part of my story, it will never become my identity.

I will be forever thankful that God gave me ____and never resentful that I lost them.

My joy in having loved _____ will be greater than my grief in having lost them.

I will not waver in my faith, nor abandon my hope, nor revoke my love. I will not charge God with wrong.

I will receive this trial as a responsibility to steward, not a punishment to endure. I will look for God’s smile in it rather than his frown, listen for his words of blessing rather than his voice of rebuke.

This sorrow will not make me angry or bitter, nor cause me to act out in rebellion or indignation.

Rather, it will make me kinder and gentler, more patient and loving, more compassionate and sympathetic.

It will loose my heart from the things of earth and fix it on the things of heaven. The loss of ____will make me more like God’s Son, my sorrow like the Man of Sorrows.

I will continue to love God and trust him, continue to pursue God and enjoy him, continue to worship God and boast of his many mercies.

I will look with longing to the day of Christ’s return and with expectation to the day of resurrection. I will remain steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

I will forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, always pressing on toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I will lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely and run with endurance the race that is set before me, looking always to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of my faith. I will remain faithful until I have fought the good fight and finished the race and kept the faith. I will die as I have lived—a follower of Jesus Christ. Then, by grace, I will go to be with Jesus, and go to be with ____.

This is my manifesto. 1

1. Adapted from Tim Challis. Season’s of Sorrow: The Pain of loss and Comfort of God. Zondervan, September 2022.