We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Nouwen Centre
Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering but in being weary of joy.
Gilbert Keith G. K. Chesterton
American Chesterton Society
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Don't Waste Your Sorrows By Paul E. Billheimer God's sometimes surprising tools for maturing and training His church are clearly explained in this eye-opening discussion on the role of suffering in a Christian's life. You will be amazed at the depth of spiritual growth possible for those who continue to trust God during life's difficulties. |
We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of person...... the one who accepts the call of God in Christ Jesus.
Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
More Oswald Chambers Materials
The readiest way to escape from our sufferings is, to be willing they should endure as long as God pleases.
John Wesley
Wesley Centre
God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Augustine
Works and Biography
Jesus didn't save you so you could cruise to heaven in a luxury liner. He wants you to be useful in His kingdom! The moment you got saved, He enrolled you in His school the school of suffering and affliction.
David Wilkerson
World Challenge,Inc. Online
When you and I hurt deeply, what we really need is not an explanation from God but a revelation of God. We need to see how great God is; we need to recover our lost perspective on life., Things get out of proportion when we are suffering, and it takes a vision of something bigger than ourselves to get life's dimensions adjusted again.,
Warren W. Wiersbe
Biography and Daily Devotional
Just as torches burn most brightly when swung to and fro; just as the juniper plant smells sweetest when flung into the flames; so the richest qualities of a Christian often come out under the north wind of adversity and suffering. Bruised hearts often emit the fragrance God loves to smell.
Anonymous
The greatest Christians in history seem to say that their sufferings ended up bringing them the closest to God - so this is the best thing that could happen, not the worst.
Peter Kreeft
Website
The breaking of the alabaster box and the anointing of the Lord filled the house with the odor, with the sweetest odor. Everyone could smell it. Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered; been limited, gone through things for the Lord, willing to be imprisoned by the Lord, just being satisfied with Him and nothing else, immediately you scent the fragrance. There is a savour of the Lord. Something has been crushed, something has been broken, and there is a resulting odor of sweetness.
Watchman Nee
Website
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When Life Isn't Fair: Making Sense Out of Suffering By Joel Freeman It is perhaps the most-asked question in any time period: "Why does God allow suffering?" Certainly, every human experiences pain and rejection. If the difficulty is long-term, one can almost be driven mad with grief or anger. We want to know why. Physical and emotional problems are so draining, we become obsessed with "fairness." How do we reconcile our concept of a powerful, loving God with the fact of child death? Or greed? Divorce? Often, we don't. That is exactly where Joel Freeman finds many of the people he counsels. Rather than giving pat answers, he relies on spiritual tools to deal with pain. It's a method that has worked remarkably well, and one that can indeed help you or a loved one through a personal valley. |
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son., A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.
Elisabeth Elliot
Gateway to Joy
Should pain and suffering, sorrow, and grief, rise up like clouds and overshadow for a time the Sun of Righteousness and hide Him from your view, do not be dismayed, for in the end this cloud of woe will descend in showers of blessing on your head, and the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you to set no more for ever.
Sadhu Sundar Singh
Short Biography
The work of spirituality is to recognize where we are - the particular circumstances of our lives - to recognize grace and say, "Do you suppose God wants to be with me in a way that does not involve changing my spouse or getting rid of my spouse or my kids, but in changing me, and doing something in my life that maybe I could never experience without this pain and this suffering?
Edmund Clowney
Website
We are puzzled and bewildered whenever we see suffering in this world because we have become accustomed to the mercy and the long-suffering of God. Amazing grace is no longer amazing to us.
R. C. Sproul
Ligonier Ministries
All born-again people are in training for rulership. Since the supreme law of that future social order, called the kingdom of God, is agape love, therefore their apprenticeship and training is for the learning of deep dimensions of this love. But deep dimensions of this love are only learned in the school of suffering. Purity is one thing, and maturity is another. The latter comes only through years of suffering. If we suffer, we shall also reign - because where there is little suffering, there is little love; no suffering, no love; no love, no rulership.
Paul Billheimer
God is doing a greater work in us, and that can only come as we learn to trust him no matter how dark the days and sleepless the nights. And it is only as we have been through the darkness with him that what we know with our heads slides down into our hearts, and our hearts no longer demand answers. The Why? becomes unimportant when we believe that God can and will redeem the pain for our good and his glory.... When I put the sovereignty of God beside his unfailing love, my heart can rest.
Verdell Davis
Brief Biography
Do not desire crosses, unless you have borne well those laid on you; it is an abuse to long after martyrdom while unable to bear an insult patiently.
Francis de Sales
Biography And Works
This is the purpose of pain for the redeemed: it is one of your Father's ways of speaking to you; it is the evidence of His limitless love, by which He would draw you farther from evil and closer to Him, the divine remedy which can cure you of pride and help you lean more trustingly on the Lord.
Walter A. Maier
Biography
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Thinking Right When Things Go Wrong: Biblical Wisdom for Surviving Tough Times By John C. Hutchison Somewhere ahead, just around the corner - or perhaps staring you in the eye - life will present you with a trial or suffering that will threaten to derail your reliance on God and upset your mental equilibrium. Whether you are in the midst of a trial that threatens to overwhelm you, or your just want to be prepared for what might be, here is the encouragement you need to keep your mind focused and your heart centered. With the heart of a pastor and the mind of a Bible teacher, John Hutchinson provides a guide that helps Christians understand biblical passages about trials and suffering. Explaining how these truths relate to our own lives, Hutchinson also gives us the means to develop a thinking process that can prepare us for difficult times and minimize the shock and paralysis of soul-crushing events. |
It is a fact of Christian experience that life is a series of troughs and peaks. In his efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, God relies on the troughs more than the peaks. And some of his special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.
Peter Marshall
Spiritual Portrait
Pain is a kindly, hopeful thing, a certain proof of life, a clear assurance that all is not yet over, that there is still a chance. But if your heart has no pain -- well, that may betoken health, as you suppose: but are you certain that it does not mean that your soul is dead?
Arthur John (A. J.) Gossip
On line article.
During an earthquake it sometimes happens that fresh springs break out in dry places which water and quicken the land so that plants can grow. In the same way the shattering experiences of suffering can cause the living water to well up in a human heart.
Sadhu Sundar Singh
A Short Biography
Thou, O Lord, canst transform my thorn into a flower. And I want my thorn transformed into a flower. Job got the sunshine after the rain, but has the rain been all waste? Job wants to know, I want to know, if the shower had nothing to do with the shining. And Thou canst tell me - Thy Cross can tell me. Thou hast crowned Thy sorrow. Be this my crown, O Lord. I only triumph in Thee when I have learned the radiance of the rain.
George Matheson
Biography
The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when we see them in the wrong light: when we see them in the hand of God, Who dispenses them; when we know that it is our loving Father who abases and distresses us; our sufferings will lose their bitterness and become even a matter of consolation.
Brother Lawrence
Biography And Works
Even if we may not always understand why God allows certain things to happen to us, we can know He is able to bring good out of evil, and triumph out of suffering.
Billy Graham
Billy Graham Organization
Christian Quotations on Adversity and Hardship
Christian Quotations on Disabilities
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