the source
and perfecter
of our faith,
who for the joy that lay before Him
endured a cross
and despised the shame,
and has sat down at the right hand
of God’s throne.” Hebrews 12:2
“Remember Luther on his sick-bed. Between his groans he managed to preach on this wise;
‘These pains and trouble here are like the type
which the printers set;
as they look now, we have to read them backwards,
and they seem to have no sense or meaning in them;
but up yonder,
when the Lord God prints us off in the life to come,
we shall find they make brave reading.’”
~Wm. C. Garnett
“You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to be distressed by various trials so that the genuineness of your faith - more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:6-7
“The Lord is near the brokenhearted;
He saves those crushed in spirit.
Many adversities
come to the one who is righteous,
but the Lord delivers him
from them all.”
Psalm 34:18-19
God does not comfort us to make us comfortable,
but to make us comforters.”
~Dr. Jowett
“Let those who want my vindication
shout for joy
and be glad;
let them continually say,
‘The Lord be exalted,
who wants His servant’s well-being.’”
Psalm 35:27
“‘My dear child, are you wondering at the sequence of trials in your life? Behold that vineyard and learn of it. The gardener ceases
to prune,
to trim,
to harrow,
or to pluck the ripe fruit only when he expects nothing more from the vine during that season. It is left to itself, because the season of fruit is past and further effort for the present would yield no profit.
Comparative uselessness is the condition of freedom from suffering.
Do you them wish Me
to cease pruning your life? Shall I leave you alone?’
And the comforted heart cried,‘No!’"
~Homera Homer-Dixon
“The patriarch Jacob… saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.’ Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that all-pervading Presence.
But he knew it not.
That was his trouble, and it is ours.
Men do not know that God is here.
What a difference it would make if they knew.” A.W. Tozer
Before the winds that blow do cease,
Teach me to dwell within Thy calm;
Before the pain has passed in peace,
Give me, my God, to sing a psalm.
Let me not lose the chance to prove
The fullness of enabling love.
O Love of God, do this for me;
Maintain a constant victory.
Before I leave the desert land
For meadows of immortal flowers,
Lead me where streams at Thy command
Flow by the borders of the hours,
That when the thirsty come, I may
Show them the fountains in the way.
O Love of God, do this for me;
Maintain a constant victory. ~Amy Carmichael
“I have set the Lord continually before me;
because He is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.”
Psalm 16:8
“Faith is
deliberate confidence
in the character of God
whose ways you may not understand at the time”
Oswald Chambers
“It may sound crazy, but I would rather have gone through all of this pain and suffering and all of these challenges and have the relationship with Jesus that I have now, than continued down the path I was on before the accident without that relationship.” ~Rich Edwards
“We are the trees whom shaking fastens more.” George Herbert
“There is this junk theology floating around out there that points to difficulties
as evidence
that you must not be following Jesus.
The biblical reality is that when people say yes to following Jesus, they are agreeing to carry a cross,
and that will be painful at times.”
-Kyle Idleman
“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
“Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary
through the blood of Jesus,
by the new and living way that He has inaugurated for us,
through the curtain (that is, His flesh);
and since we have a great high priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed in pure water.
Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering,
for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:19-23
“Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
to stretch out spaces in the heart
for joy”
~unknown
“God tells us that to be in a fog,
a dark place,
to have no clue of what comes next,
is to be in a place where we need to trust Him
and keep our hand in His hand,
waiting
for Him to show us where to go or what to do next”
~Edith Schaeffer
‘Cast your burden on the Lord
and He will support you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.’ Psalm 55:22
Deep in me, Lord, mark Thou Thy holy cross
On motives, choices, private dear desires;
Let all that self in any form inspires
Be unto me as dross.
And when Thy touch of death is here and there
Laid on a thing most precious in my eyes,
Let me not wonder, let me recognize
The answer to my prayer
Amy Carmichael
“He makes note of the
smallest seed
and the
tiniest sparrow.
He is not too busy to keep records
even of
my falling hair.
Yet in our darkness we suppose He has overlooked us.
He hasn’t.”
Elisabeth Elliot
‘Remember these things, Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I formed you , you are My servant; Israel, you will never be forgotten by me.' Isaiah 44:21
“Our faith in God’s power
must not be separated
from our faith in God’s will.
God has the power to do many things
He does not will to do.
That does not nullify our faith,
but it tests our faith to see if it will be in submission to His will.” John Butler
“Do you know that lovely fact about the opal? That, in the first place, it is made only of desert dust, sand, silica, and owes it’s beauty and preciousness to a defect. It is a stone with a broken heart. It is full of minute fissures which admit air, and the air refracts the light. Hence it’s lovely hues, and that sweet lamp of fire that ever burns at its heart, for the breath of the Lord God is in it.
You are only conscious of the cracks and desert dust, but so He makes His precious opal. We must be broken in ourselves before we can give back the lovely hues of His light, and the lamp in the temple can burn in us and never go out” Ellice Hopkins
‘I cried to You for help and You healed me…
Weeping may spend the night but there is joy in the morning…
Lord, when You showed Your favor,
You made me stand like a strong mountain…
You turned my lament into dancing;
You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness;
so that I can sing to You and not be silent; Lord my God, I will praise You forever.’
Psalm 30:2,5,7,11-12
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