1
Instead of making our requests of God, it is good sometimes to ask God what He wants of us, then to pause and let His spirit speak to our hearts.
--Paul Tournier
2
No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the psalms were born in a wilderness. Most of the epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through the fire. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make preeminent use of a man, He puts him in the fire.
--George MacDonald
3
In Psalm 37:7 the psalmist exhorts, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" (NKJV). In the Hebrew, the word "rest" virtually means "quit nagging," "be silent to the Lord." When we have reached that ultimate communion with the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ, we know how to appropriate divine life, taking from Him all that we need. We need not nag Him. We simply rest in Him and in His gracious purpose for our lives.
--Stephen F. Olford
4
If you have a special need today, focus your full attention on the goodness and greatness of your Father rather than on the size of your need. Your need is tiny compared to His ability to meet it.
--Bill Patterson
5
Learn your lessons well in the schoolroom of obscurity. God is preparing you as his chosen arrow. As yet your shaft is hidden in his quiver, in the shadows . . . but at the precise moment at which it will tell with the greatest effect, he will reach for you and launch you to that place of his appointment.
--Charles R. Swindoll
6
God sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become. --John Ortberg
7
By afflictions God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When He makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go. --John Powell
8
Life need not be easy to be joyful. Joy is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ. --William Vander Hoven
9
The will of God may lead us on a winding road that doesn't make sense, even to the most mature mind. But when the way gets puzzling, we can still trust in the omniscience of God. He knows the end from the beginning, and we can trust His character, knowing that His plans are aimed at accomplishing the best goals. --Donna Morley
10
Trouble does not necessarily mean you are out of God's will. It might mean that you are doing exactly what God wants you to do. Sometimes God sends trouble not as a judgment but as a sign that you are doing right. When Jesus was crucified, was He out of God's will? No. Yet His life ended in the midst of pain and suffering. No one was ever more in God's will than Jesus, but He was murdered by His enemies. The fact that your life hasn't worked out exactly like you planned doesn't necessarily mean your decisions were wrong. Sometimes there are other factors at work. --Ray Pritchard
11
Pressing on in painful circumstances is the discipline of keeping our faith when everything not only goes wrong but becomes worse. It means holding onto the Lord during deep trials and asking Him to hold onto us when we feel weak in faith and hope. --Sheila Cragg
12
Our personal afflictions involve the living God; the only way in which Satan can persecute or afflict God is through attacking the people of God. The only way we can have personal victory in the midst of these flying arrows raining down on us is to call upon the Lord for help. It is His strength, supplied to us in our weakness, that makes victory after victory possible. --Edith Schaeffer
13
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
--Katharina von Schlegel
14
God does not leave us comfortless, but we have to be in dire need of comfort to know the truth of His promise. It is in time of calamity . in days and nights of sorrow and trouble that the presence, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of God grow very sure and very wonderful. Then we find out that the grace of God is sufficient for all our needs, for every problem and for every difficulty, for every broken heart, and for every human sorrow. --Peter Marshall
15
The Christian's faith is strengthened as he keeps the promises of God before him and considers, not the difficulties in the way of the things promised, but the character and resources of God Who has made the promise.
--Paul Little
16
Should we feel at times disheartened and discouraged, a simple movement of heart toward God will renew our powers. Whatever he may demand of us, he will give us at the moment the strength and courage that we need.
--Francois de Fenelon
17
God is every moment totally aware of each one of us. . . . No man passes through any area of life, happy or tragic, without the attention of God with him. --Eugenia Price
18
Trust God where you cannot trace Him. Do not try to penetrate the cloud He brings over you; rather look to the bow that is on it. The mystery is God's; the promise is yours. --John MacDuff
19
We can walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do his will, waiting for the endless good which he is always giving as fast as he can get us able to take it in. --George MacDonald
20
He stands fast as your rock, steadfast as your safeguard, sleepless as your watcher, valiant as your champion. --Charles H. Spurgeon
21
Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation. --Andrew Murray
22
All that God does agrees with all that God is, and being and doing are one in Him. He cannot act out of character with Himself. --A. W. Tozer
23
Children do not find it difficult or complicated to talk to their parents, nor do they feel embarrassed to bring the simplest need to their attention. Neither should we hesitate to bring the simplest requests confidently to the Father. --Richard J. Foster
24
The secret of Christian quietness is not indifference, but the knowledge that God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, and worry becomes an impossibility. --Oswald Chambers
25
Let this be understood above all: the power of prayer is not in us, that we speak. It is in God, that he listens! --Walter Wangerin
26
If God sends us on stony paths, he provides strong shoes. --Corrie ten Boom
27
Every request I make of God is a message telling of my neediness, of my trust in God, of my willing dependence and openness to receive. My requests are often foolish, as I am, but God is well able to cope. --Michael Casey
28
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face us with the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ---Henri Nouwen
29
The thicker the cloud, the brighter the bow in the cloud. Thus, as threatening afflictions abound, encouraging consolations much more abound. The rainbow appears when one part of the sky is clear, which intimates mercy remembered in the midst of wrath; and the clouds are hemmed as it were with the rainbow, that they may not overspread the heavens, for the bow is colored rain or the edges of a cloud gilded. --Matthew Henry
30
God knows, not I, the reason why
His winds of storm drive through my door;
I am content to live or die
Just knowing this, nor knowing more.
My Father's hand appointing me
My days and ways, so I am free.
--Margaret Sangster
