The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Why God Allows Suffering — Shannon Bream Breaks It Down

Lisa Boothe (0:00)

Welcome back to The Truth with Lisa Boothe, where we get to the heart of the issues that matter to you. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Shannon Bream to the show. She is a colleague of mine, a Fox News anchor, also just one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. God's light really does radiate through her. But she's also the author of her fourth straight New York Times number one bestselling books, Nothing Is Impossible with God. Out now, you can go get it. It's a powerful book. She dives into the stories of 11 biblical heroes who have faced fear, failure, waiting, doubt and pain, all the things that we experience in our own lives. Yet they discover that with God, nothing is impossible. So we're talking real life encouragement for anyone feeling stuck, weary, that they're not enough. And we're gonna talk about how God works through these imperfect people, turns their pain into purpose, and shows up even in our longest in-between seasons where we feel like we have been waiting for forever. So stay tuned for The Great Shannon Bream.

Well, Shannon Bream, it's such an honor to have you on the show. You are one of the kindest people in the industry, and I'm so happy for you. You've got another number one times bestseller, which is not an easy thing to do. So congratulations.

Shannon Bream (1:19)

Thank you. You know, it's a team effort. And I got to say our Fox Books team, which has launched this just, you know, a few years ago has just had amazing success with us.

Lisa Boothe (1:28)

Well, and no doubt because of a lot of books that you've written as well. I'm really interested in talking to you about this new book, Nothing Is Impossible with God, because it's so relatable on so many fronts. We've all got issues. We've all got.

Shannon Bream (1:40)

Yes, we do.

Lisa Boothe (1:41)

And your book really gets into that using these different examples to sort of let us know that we're not alone, both historically and biblically. So we'll just start off. You say nothing is impossible with God. You know, for someone right now who is listening and just feels stuck right now, what does it look like in real life, everyday life that nothing is impossible with God?

Shannon Bream (2:03)

You know, these 11 stories from the Bible that I included, they all include moments of that. And, you know, Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So whether it's a physical challenge, a financial challenge, a broken family, feeling oppression, your own failures, I mean, all of those things, I think, translate into 2026 So we've all walked through things like that. I would not have chosen the really dark, hard valleys in my life, but I can see with some retrospects what God was up to and what he was working on. So my hope is that when people dip into these characters, meet these people, they may feel like, okay, I'm walking through something similar. I can see how there is good that could potentially come from this. And maybe my prayers aren't answered exactly the way that I want. We see that in the Bible too, but God is always listening and answering our prayers. And he is working at a level that sometimes we can't understand in the worst of those moments.

Lisa Boothe (2:55)

Well, and I think what's really special, too, is, and you tell these stories as well, but God uses imperfect people.

And I think those testimonies actually go really far with people, right? Because there are so many people who are saying, I can't be a Christian. I've messed up. I've done X, Y, and Z, what have you. And then, no, God uses imperfect people throughout the Bible. And you tell those stories as well in Nothing Is Impossible with God. Why do you think it's so important that God used people who were imperfect?

Shannon Bream (3:25)

Well, it's good news for all of us, because then it means that us as sinful, flawed people who often feel like I've messed up so much, God couldn't love me or he couldn't ever use me, he gives us example after example in the Bible. And I find that so encouraging personally. We're never beyond the reach of his redemption or of his kindness or of his fellowship or of his love, most certainly.

And I think Peter is one of the stories that I included that is the best illustration of that because he was so close to Jesus, he was in that inner inner circle with him. And yet he even got things wrong. Sometimes he didn't even really realize who Jesus was, even though he walked so closely with him.