He lost his wife, his second marriage and his ministry: Dr Tan Soo Inn on how to go All In for God when you are suffering

By his own admission, his grades “weren’t that hot”. So when the boy from Penang was awarded a place to study in the Faculty of Dentistry at the National University of Singapore, it was “quite miraculous”.

But in his final year in school, Dr Tan Soo Inn was steered into a totally different direction.

“The Lord made it clear to me that He wanted me to be a Pastor, not because I believe being a Pastor is more spiritual than being a dentist.

“God calls each of us to different places in life. We are called to be obedient to where God has placed us.”

Dr Tan knew it would be a difficult decision. His family was “not particularly rich” and he was one of two children.

“When you’ve got 10 sons and nine become doctors, maybe one can become a Pastor. But when you only got one son, this is not your preferred vocational dream for your son.

“So my parents were unhappy and, of course, there would be a drastic drop in income.”

Dr Tan wrestled with the decision for a time and “emerged with a fresh conviction that Jesus is Who He is – my Lord and my God”. That being the case, he had to “go all in for Him if He asked me to do something”.

Dr Tan graduated, worked for three years as a dentist for “a bit of life experience” before entering a seminary.

“I thought, ‘This was the big sacrifice. I gave up dentistry to be a Pastor.’”

Dr Tan, chairman of Graceworks and its training consultant, was speaking at one of the plenary sessions of the Intentional Disciplemaking Church (IDMC) 2025 Conference on the topic “All In Despite …”. The theme this year was “All In”.

“I blew it, Lord”

Dr Tan revealed that after he had been in ministry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for some years and had set up his own family, life gave him a rude shock. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live.

His first response was raw and heartfelt. He told God: “I thought the deal was – I obey You, You take care of my family.”

When his wife eventually passed away, Dr Tan was “very lost, really lost”. With two young children to raise, he was advised to remarry, which he did.

“But to my painful shock, that marriage broke down. At that time, I lost most of my ministry. ‘You’re a leader. You cannot have such a kind of a public failure.’ I lost my reputation.

“And I went into a time of clinical depression. I needed the help of psychiatrists,” said Dr Tan.

“There was a time when I said, ‘I blew it, man, Lord, I wanted to follow You. You asked me to be a Pastor. I did, and now …”

Can we be All In when we are suffering?

It is in times like these, said Dr Tan, that being challenged to be “all in” may just be another burden to someone who is already “too tired, broken, failed and wounded”.

“We can’t pretend that ‘all in’ comes in some perfect world with perfect Christians, which means it’s a broken world where some of us may fumble or even fumble big time.

“Can we still be all in then? How do we respond to this call to be ‘all in’ when we are going through a difficult time?”

He shared three truths to encourage the participants.

1. The character of God

A God who is sovereign

“Even if you are going through a difficult time, we still want to affirm that God is sovereign,” Dr Tan declared.

The night before they discovered that his first wife had cancer, God led him to the book of Job.

“God was preparing me for what was going to come the next day.”

a) The faithful are not immune from suffering

The plight of Job is a reminder that “even if you are following God faithfully, there’s no guarantee you won’t suffer the brokenness of life” because the Bible actually said that Job was a righteous man. Yet he “went through horrendous pain”. He lost his family, his business and, eventually, his health.

b) There is always purpose in the pain

Job also taught Dr Tan that God “always has a purpose for what He does”. God and Satan had a discussion in heaven about Job before the tragedies struck in succession.

“It tells me that God allowed this for some purpose. It was not just some random suffering. Instead, it was the result of this exchange between God and Satan.

“So even though we may not understand why, God always has a purpose for what He does. Satan was not some free agent doing what he likes, He can only do what God allows him to do.

“So that is what we hold on to even in our deepest pain.”  

c) God is not obliged to explain Himself

The third lesson Dr Tan learnt from Job was that “God is not obliged to tell you why”.

Though Job questioned God, God never told him about the celestial exchange. When God eventually spoke to Job, He listed all the majestic things He had done instead.

“Basically, He hammered home the point, ‘Am I the kind of God who makes mistakes?’ Then Job closed his mouth.

“If He thinks it’s for your help, He will tell you why. If He thinks it’s not for your help, He won’t tell you. God is sovereign and He knows what is best. We have to submit to the sovereignty of God.”

A God who works good out of bad

What was intended for evil, God intends for good (Genesis 10:20). The death of Jesus on the cross is a prime example of this.

“It was the worst injustice in history – an innocent man killed. But out of this bad thing came the salvation of all mankind,” said Dr Tan.

Dr Tan talked about the three aspects of God’s character we can cling on to in our suffering and pain.

“So even when bad things happen to us, this is a God who is capable of bringing good out of bad, and we can hang on to that as well.”

In Acts, the persecution of the early believers in Jerusalem made them flee to other parts of the world. Because of that, the Gospel travelled far beyond Israel.

“Romans 8:28 says, ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

“That verse helped me keep my sanity in the darkest moments. Bad will never have the last word. God will always be able to do something that makes bad good.”

A God who is not in a hurry

Quoting Galatians 4:4, Dr Tan continued: “Remember, it says, ‘In the fullness of time, Christ came.’ This is a constant call for us to trust in the timing of God. We have to submit to the perfect timing of God.”

In the story of Joseph, he had to wait a long time to see his life turn around, during which God refined his character. After being sold to slavery, he went to serve in the household of Potiphar where he “encountered a desperate housewife” who wanted to seduce him.

“But he said, ‘I cannot go against my master and my God.’ This was a major test because if you’re used to power, you can use power for your own purposes easily.”

Joseph remained steadfast and was thrown into prison where he would remain for many years.

“God has His own timetable,” said Dr Tan.

“If you allow this young punk to be a leader at a very young age without all these humbling experiences, how dangerous that would have been. So God had to take His time. There’s no shortcut.

“I’m very impatient, but I had to learn all these years to respond to and respect God’s plan. God is not a God who is in a hurry.”

2. The purposes of God

Our pain helps to protect us from pride

“I think pride is the most dangerous poison. Especially if God actually blesses your ministry and people give you praise: ‘Oh, you’re so good.’

There is purpose behind the pain, Dr Tan encouraged.

“If you get too much of this kind of affirmation, then pride will come in.”

Dr Tan cited the example of Paul to whom God gave a “thorn in the flesh”.

“Paul is not a wimp. He has been whipped before, shipwrecked, whatever. So it must be really very painful, whatever it was, we don’t know what it was, that Paul asked three times for the thing to be taken away.

“And three times God didn’t take it away and He says, ‘This is to protect you from pride.’”

Our failures teach us our limitations and our need for God

“The more gifted you are, the more you tend to depend on yourself. We need to learn that we need God.

“Self-sufficiency is the second poison.”

Dr Tan noted that self-sufficiency was the original sin and, in many ways, the “heart of sin itself”. Eve wanted to be like God so that she did not need to depend on Him.

“Sometimes, pain is used by God to help us to understand that we need Him.”

This was the case with Jacob who often “got his way through his wits”. God knew that if Jacob could not realise his need for Him, he could not be Israel. So God engaged Jacob in a wrestling match. It was only when God dislocated Jacob’s hip that he realised he needed God and asked God for a blessing.

“He had never asked for blessings before that. So sometimes our pain is just a reminder that we need God. Everything is under His control.

“In a fallen world and with people still being sanctified, it seems that pain is our God’s main pedagogical instrument. We learn lessons in pain.

“Because God loves us, He’s concerned for more than just our comfort. He’s concerned for us to be the kind of people we should be.”

Our struggles test and build our faith

“At the end of the day, it’s not just how much we can do, it is the degree to which we have faith in God.

“Faith is like a muscle. If it’s not tested, it can never grow. God wants us to be a people who have faith in Him.”

It is when we encounter pain and difficulty beyond what we can handle that we realise that “the only way out is to have faith in God”.

3. The redemption of pain

It builds our character

In going “All In”, we tend to think more about how to get things done than to who we are when we are doing it. But we are to have the character of Christ.

“I remember when I was at Regent College and Dr Houston my professor said: ‘Technique and knowledge are like two towers that you build, but your foundation is your character.

“If the foundation is narrow, then the structure is very unstable. You know so much, you’re so effective, you know the best techniques and technology. But you’re not humble and mature in Christ, then the towers will fall.”

That is how key leaders have fallen.

It builds bridges to those we are called to minister to

In a world where we are constantly bombarded by bad news, we can become numb to pain and suffering. Going through pain ourselves “helps build bridges to those we are called to minister “.

Dr Tan shared that when he was widowed, the people who reached out to him best were those who had also been widowed.

“Not because other people were not caring, but those who had gone through that same pain and loss were the best able to walk with me. They don’t say very much. You know and I know how difficult a time this is.

“So the pain that you go through can be something that helps you empathise with the people you’ve got to minister to. Suffering is part of your toolkit. God equips you to be all in.”

It gives all glory to God

Knowing that we are but “earthen vessels” yet God would choose to use us helps us realise that everything then has “got to be God”.

“If we do not have any sense of brokenness, we think that we’re on top of everything. It’s hard to give glory to God.

“But, once in a while, you feel like a fool, and then you say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s God, and that’s the right thing to do.’ All glory to God, right?”

Dr Tan had a personal experience of just that. When he was in “the depths of his depression”, having lost his second marriage and his ministry, someone who was part of a mentoring group he led visited him.  

Dr Tan told the man: “If you think I’m not fit to mentor you, I totally understand. You don’t have to come back for future sessions.”

But the whole group remained with Dr Tan.

The man later told him: “We saw you at your worst, your lowest. Your life was in pieces. Even then, you still love Jesus and you still love us. So we came back.”

The group became “the most powerful small group” in which Dr Tan had been.

Encouraging the participants, Dr Tan said: “In the depth of your pain, don’t give up. In fact, in one of the darkest moments of my life, the Lord said to me: ‘Your story is not over yet.’

“And I’m repeating this, any of you who are going through a very rough time and you’re thinking your ministry is compromised; you can’t do anything: Your story is not over yet. Just trust God and continue to journey on.”

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