Joni Eareckson Tada Quotes About Suffering
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God turns on its head one form of evil - suffering - in order to defeat another form of evil - that is, our transgressions. It happened at the cross, and it occurs in the lives of followers of Christ every day.
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Many people in the throes of suffering, disappointment, and despair, feel utterly stuck in their circumstances. They see no hope beyond their day-to-day drudgery of disability routines; but when hurting families place themselves under the shower of God's mercy, suddenly the clouds part. They realize there's hope, life, and even joy beyond their suffering.
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Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised.
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Suffering always prompts heart-wrenching questions: if God is good, why would He allow this pain in my life? Is God truly sovereign over accidents and birth anomalies, or does the devil set the world's agenda? How do I counsel people who are despairing of their condition?
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Now, most people who suffer realize that the Bible contains answers for their plight; they just don't know where to look.
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We're not the paragons of virtue that we'd all like to think we are. And so, to shatter that myth, God will use suffering to expose the stuff of which we're made.
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Suffering is arguably God's choicest tool in shaping the character of Christ in us.
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God lets us continue to feel much of sin's sting through suffering while we're heading for heaven. This constantly reminds us of what we're being delivered from; exposing sin for the poison it is.
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Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him.
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The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It's enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrow currently assail us aren't worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.
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God wrote a book on suffering, and its name is Jesus.
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God always seems bigger to those who need him most. And suffering is the tool he uses to help us need him more.
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The greatest good suffering can do for me is to increase my capacity for God.
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When we hurt, God doesn't always give us lots of words; he gives us the Word; the Word made flesh who is intimately acquainted with our grief and suffering. That's what helps the most.
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God deliberately chooses weak, suffering and unlikely candidates to get His work done, so that in the end, the glory goes to God and not to the person.
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God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in time of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character.
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The problem of suffering is not about something but about someone.
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In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn't get squeamish about it.
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Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal - 'I'm not letting go until I get what I want' - it's a problem.
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God points to the peaceful attitude of suffering people to teach others about Himself.
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Most people wish they could erase suffering out of the dictionary. Today's culture of comfort and instant gratification has no patience for suffering - most people want to drug it, escape it, divorce it; do anything but live with it.
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When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating him and quoting him and speaking of him. But only in suffering will we know Jesus.
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