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O livro O sorriso escondido de Deus, de John Piper, é a história de três grandes homens de Deus. John Piper mostra por meio da história desses homens que através de nossas atitudes podemos alegrar o coração de Deus.

Esse livro inicia com a história de John Bunyan, autor do livro O Peregrino, que ficou preso por doze anos por não querer renunciar a sua pregação do evangelho a todas as pessoas, durante sua prisão, Bunyan confiou em Deus de maneira persistente e inabalável e firmou toda a sua dependência naquele que não se pode ver.

Outro homem que tem a sua história contada como exemplo é David Brainerd, ele foi um homem que buscava santidade, em meio ao seu sofrimento causado pela tuberculose, tudo o que ele queria era encontrar-se diante de Deus de maneira agradável a Ele e alcançar mais do coração dEle.
O último homem tratado por Piper nesse livro é William Cowper que em meio às dificuldades, aos sofrimentos pessoais, não deixou de louvar a Deus, de engrandecer o nome dEle através de sua poesia, confortando-se e ajudando a si mesmo a suportar a dor e o sofrimento.
Ao ler essas lindas histórias de vidas você poderá reparar que por trás de tudo isso há um sorriso, aquele tipo de sorriso que reflete amor e orgulho, o sorriso escondido de Deus. Leia, se encante e se deixe tocar por esse lindo sorriso.

[ I am a] pastor whose mission in life is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. 11
William Cowper… Is known as "the poet of a new religious revival "led by John Wesley and George Whitfield. 12
But they did not all have the same pain. For Bunyan it was prison and danger, for Cowper it was lifelong depression and suicidal darkness, for Brainerd it was tuberculosis and the "howling wilderness." 14
1Ch 19:12 And he said, If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me: but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will help thee.
1Ch 19:13 Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in his sight. 28
We shall or shall not suffer, even as it pleases him.… God has appointed who shall suffer. Suffering comes not by chance or by the will of man, but by the will and appointment of God. 30
The affliction [that brings all three together] was the terrifying mental turmoil and darkness of guilt before God, and the remedy for it was the great biblical truth of justification by grace through faith alone. 33
The Second London Confession was forged by Baptists in Bunyan's lifetime and published in its final form in 1689, the year after he died. Built on the Westminster confession of faith, it was crystal clear on justification. "Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifiers; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone, not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them as their righteousness; but by imputing Christ's active obedience to the whole law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness, receiving and resting on him, and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no death, but worketh by love. 33–34
I was made to see that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can be properly called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them. The second was, to live upon God that is invisible. John Bunyan, Grace abounding to the chief of sinners. 40
He lived on "God that is invisible." Increasingly this was Bunyan's passion from the time of his conversion as a young married man to the day of his death when he was 60 years old. 43
I want that for myself and my family and the church I serve and for all who read this book. For nothing glorifies God more than maintaining our stability and joy when we lose everything but God. 46
He "came to the state of matrimony" when he was 20 or 21, but we never learn his wife's name. What we do learn is that she was poor, but had a godly father who had died and left her two books that she brought to the marriage… 50
"The God in whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast into mine hand one day a book of Martin Luther's; it was his comments on Galatians.… I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart. I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting Lyd Holy Bible, before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience." 53
"He hath, through grace, taken these three heavenly degrees, to whit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and experiences of the temptations of Satan, which do more fit a man for that mighty work or preaching the gospel then all university learning and degrees that can be had." 61
Bunyan's suffering opened his understanding to the truth that the Christian life is hard and that following Jesus means having the wind in your face. 64
"It is the will of God, that they that go to heaven should go thither hardly or with difficulty. The righteous shall scarcely be saved. That is, they shall, but yet with great difficulty, that it may be the sweeter." 64
"Hast thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which way so ever things should go, for that the scales are still in God's hand." 73
If "living upon God that is invisible" is the key to suffering rightly, what is the key to living upon God? Bunyan's answer is: Lay hold on Christ through the Word of God, the Bible. He doesn't need this, of course, to the exclusion of prayer. 74
"I have not for these things fished in other men's waters; my Bible and Concordance are my only library in my writings." 77
"God has strewed all the way from the gates of hell, where thou wast, to the gate of heaven, whether thou art going, with flowers out of his own garden. Behold how the promises, invitations, calls, and encouragements, like lilies, lie round about thee! Take heed that thou dost not tread them under thy foot." 78

WILLIAM COWPER
One of the reasons for [writing poetry] is that I live with that almost constant awareness of the breach between the low intensity of my own passion and the staggering realities of the universe around me – heaven, hell, creation, eternity, life, Jesus Christ, justification by faith, God. All of us (whether we know it or not) try to close this breach between the weakness of our emotions and the wonder of the world. Some of us do it with poetry. 82
... one great aim of the Bible is to build a bridge between a prosaic deadness of the human heart and the inexpressible reality of the living God. 83
But those of us who are older have come to see that the events of the soul are probably the most important events in life. And the battles in this man's soul were of epic proportions. 85
By [evangelical] I simply mean that the form of Christianity he imbibed at home did not highlight the "evangelical," that is, the gospel of Christ crucified and risen for sinners, which is recorded for us in the infallible Bible and preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, and believed in a very personal way that issues in a life of conscious devotion to Christ as the eternal son of God, with disciplines of Bible reading and prayer and the pursuit of holiness and concern for unbelievers to hear the gospel and to be saved from everlasting torment. Those would be the typical marks of an "evangelical" as I am using the term. 85 footnote
In 1752 he sank into his first paralyzing depression – the first of four major battles with mental breakdown so severe as to set him to staring out of windows for weeks at a time. Struggle with despair came to be the theme of his life. He was 21 years old not yet a believer. 86
One might wish the story were one of emotional triumph after his conversion. But it did not turn out that way. Far from it. 94
Newton saw Cooper's bent to melancholy and reclusiveness and drew him into the ministry of visitation as much as he could. They would take long walks together between homes and talk of God and his purpose for the church. 96
He does not say precisely what the dream was, but only that a "word" was spoken that reduced him to spiritual despair, something to the effect of "it is all over with you, you are lost." 96
[to Newton] You will tell me that this cold gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavor to encourage me to hope for spiritual change resembling it – but it will be lost labor… 99
What would he mean in 1784, 12 years after the "fatal dream," that Jesus had drawn the arrows out and healed him and bade him live? Were there not moments when he truly felt this and affirmed it against the constitutional gloom of his own mind? 101

Would you your son should be a sot or a dunce,
Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once,
That in good time, the stripling's finished taste
For loose expense and fashionable waste
Should prove your ruin, and his own at last,
Train him in public with a mob of boys,
Childish in mischief only and in noise,
Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten
In infidelity and lewdness, men. ... 107

What shall we learn from the life of William Cowper? The first lesson is this: we fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distress of the certainties of despair. 109
The second lesson I see is that we should love our children deeply and keep communicating that love to them. And, unless some extraordinary call of God prevents it, let us keep them close to us and secure with us. 110
... A crucial lesson for those of us who are given to two much introspection and analysis. … " I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work." 112
[CS Lewis] "You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment; for in hope we look to hopes object and we interrupt this by (so to speak) turning round to look at the hope itself.… The surest means of disarming an anger or lust was to turn your attention from the girl or the insult and start examining the passion itself." 112
Self-forgetfulness in the contemplation of something great or the doing of something good is a gift from God. 113
Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are. 114
Yes, he may say that these are all wonderful in themselves, but that they do not belong to him. To this you say, "Doubt your despairing thoughts…" 119
DAVID BRAINERD
David Brainerd was born on April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut. 123
So on top of having an austere father and suffering the loss of both parents as a sensitive child, David probably inherited some kind of physical tendency to depression. 124
My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, the loveliness and the greatness and other perfections of God that I was even swallowed up in him, at least to that degree that I had thought, as I remember at first, about my own salvation or scarce that there was such a creature as I. 126
Brainerd came to understand more fully from his own experience the difference between spiritual desertion and the disease of melancholy. 134
I was greatly afraid I should be obliged to get to drink of that "cup of trembling," which was inconceivably more bitter than death, and made me long for the grave more, unspeakably more, than for hid treasures ... Was so overwhelmed with dejection that I do not how to live: I long for death exceedingly: my soul was "sunk in deep waters," and "the floods" ready to "drown me": I was so much oppressed that my soul was in a kind of horror. 135
Perhaps the worst mental condition of all was the disappearance of all capacity to feel or to love at all. 135
And in this case I felt neither love to God, or desire of heaven as I used to think I did. Neither fear of hell, or love to the present world. 136
... had some inward sweetness on the road, but something of flatness and deadness after I came there and had seen the Indians: I withdrew and endeavored to pray, but found myself awfully deserted and left, and had an afflicting sense of my vileness and meanness. 137
But we have to see this is part of Brainerd's struggle because an eye for beauty instead of bleakness might have lightened some of his load. 140
[Jonathan Edwards] I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day, spent much time viewing the clouds in the sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things… 141
Brainerd never mentioned natural beauty. In contrast to Edward's joy in summer is Brainerd's fear of winter. 142
He expresses guilt that he should preach to immortal souls with no more ardency and so little desire for their salvation. 144
We turn now to how Brainerd responded to these struggles. What we are stuck with immediately is that he pressed on. 146
... No aspiration on earth surpassed the supreme purpose to savor and spread the reign of Christ in his own personal holiness and the conversion of the Indians for the glory of God [ commune and co-work ]. 147
Retired pretty early for secret devotions; and in prayer God was pleased to pour such ineffable comforts into my soul that I could do nothing for sometime but say over and over, "Oh my sweet Savior! Oh my sweet Savior!" "Whom have I in heaven but thee… 149
Along with prayer and fasting, Brainerd bought up the time with study and mingled all three of these together.… "Rose early and wrote by candlelight some considerable time; spent most of the day in writing." 151
There are at least two reasons why Brainerd and why I and many others count writing an essential part of our spiritual life – not just ministerial life, but spiritual life. First, it brings clarity to the mind about great matters that we are reading or thinking about. Second, it intensifies the affections that are kindled by the clear and solid sight of great truth. 152
... Without what I Alfred North Whitehead called "an habitual vision of greatness," our soul will shrivel up and lose the capacity for beauty and mystery and transcendence… 153
Give sustained attention to the great themes of the human spirit – life and death, transcendence, the problem of evil, the human predicament, the greatness of rightness, and much more. 153
But the tide of Awakening brought in a zeal for education as well as piety, and the Presbyterians founded Princeton, the Baptists founded Brown, the Dutch reformed founded Rutgers, and the Congregationalist founded Dartmouth. 157
...that God would grant us a persevering grace to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. 159
There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning. 164
But we modern, Western Christians have come to see safety and ease as a right. We move away from bad neighborhoods. We leave hard relationships. We don't go to dangerous, unreached people groups. 165
It isn't strange. It's normal. That is the message of the Pilgrims Progress. The Hill Difficulty is the only path to heaven. There is no other. 166
Oh, how we need Bunyan! We are soft and thin-skinned. We are worldly; we fit far too well into our God-ignoring culture. We are fearful and anxious and easily discouraged. We have taken our eyes off the celestial city and the the deep pleasures of knowing God and denying ourselves the lesser things that titillate for a moment but then shrink our capacities for great joy. Bunyan's seasonable counsel for us is: take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 166
If the Christian life has become the path of ease and fun in the modern West, then corporate worship is the place of increasing entertainment. The problem is not a battle between contemporary worship music and hymns; the problem is that there aren't enough martyrs during the week. If no soldiers are perishing, what you want on Sunday is Bob Hope and some pretty girls, not the army chaplain and a surgeon. 167
They can read comics every day. What they need from me is not more bouncy, frisky smiles and stories. What they need is a kind of joyful earnestness that makes the broken heart feel hopeful and helps the ones who are drunk with trifles sober up for greater joys. 167
There is an entire theology of suffering in Cowper's hymns. It is sturdy and sound and redwood-like in the midst of our sapling sermonettes. 168
Worship is the display of the surpassing worth of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy – because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) – is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. 169
Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. 169
The path to everlasting joy in God leads up Hill Difficulty, with deep and joyful worship, into an unreached world of perishing sinners… 170

All of Piper's biographical sketches are pearl. The conference version is available for streaming or download as MP3 for free at the Desiring God website. ( )

This is a German translation titled, Standhaft im Leiden: John Bunyan, William Cowper, David Brainerd