Pastor Tim Timberlake on How God Uses Suffering to Grow Us
Tim Timberlake, a senior pastor of Celebration Church in Florida, has released his new book, which challenges the Western church's obsession with comfort. In a recent interview with The Christian Post, Timberlake shared how his book, titled "The Bumpy Road to Better," came about.
"There's great power hidden in the things we're trying to avoid," he explained. "When we unlock the strength and the power in hard things, I believe those things benefit us a lot deeper, a lot richer, and a lot more meaningful than if things were easy."
In the book, Timberlake outlines 22 "hard things" that every person faces at some point in their lives, including doubt, criticism, pain, delay, and sacrifice, and encourages readers to view difficulty as a gift rather than just a struggle.
"There's great power hidden in the things we're trying to avoid," he explained. "When we unlock the strength and the power in hard things, I believe those things benefit us a lot deeper, a lot richer, and a lot more meaningful than if things were easy."
Timberlake noted how anticipated pain is easier to handle than unexpected pain.
"When we can anticipate and expect hardship and pain, I believe we have a little bit more leniency with our mental stamina," he said. "But when the bumps in the road arrive unannounced, we struggle."
The pastor proposed that the answer is to develop a "margin" for adversity in the heart, as well as exercising and conditioning faith to meet life's trials with resilience.
"It's like when you work out. You hit that pain threshold and you start to talk to yourself in third person. Your mind wheels your body into submission, and it reminds you of the goal," he said.
At the same time, however, Timberlake acknowledged that faith is not immune to doubt.
"For instance, one of the greatest things I struggle with, even today, is doubt," Timberlake reflected. "Not my disbelief in God …but depending on how big the bump is in the road, I ask myself the question, is God good in this situation, and will God do it for me?"
For comfort, Timberlake turns to the biblical account of the distressed father who begged Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief."
"Life has this crazy way of giving us what I call faith fatigue," he said. "It's not that we don't believe. We bring ourselves to the conclusion that maybe what we're believing for can't happen for us, but maybe it can happen for someone else."
He added that his book is for those who have a hard time fully believing.
"It's just a tool, a resource, to help those on this weary journey to remain, to endure, and to have sustaining power to get from where you are to where I believe God desires for you to be."
Timberlake also critiqued the Western church for teaching a false view of comfort.
"Westernized culture, and to make it a little more specific, the westernized church, teaches a doctrine that would have us believe that when we follow Christ, then things should work out the way we want them to," he said. "That theology is just not sound."
Citing Hebrews 11, Timberlake noted that Christians typically focus on the victories in the chapter's first half rather than the latter half, where there were believers who "died in faith" without receiving the promises.
"They died holding on to the faith they had anchored in," he said. "We don't get disappointed by what happens to us. We get disappointed by what we expected not to happen to us."
Moreover, he emphasized that Scripture is about conviction rather than one's feelings.
"The Word of God is truth," he stressed. "And when it is applied, the truth sets us free."
"There are very good things that come from godly conviction," he added, "and very bad things that come from leaning into comfort over that conviction."
Timberlake cited the Apostle Paul's words, "I am being poured out like a drink offering," near the end of his life.
"My prayer is that we live our lives full and die empty," he said. "Because we were good down to the last drop."
Photo Credit: ©Instagram/ttimberlake
Originally published July 16, 2025.
