The enemy uses disappointments to cause so much trouble in an unsettled heart. A heart hungry for something to ease the ache of disappointment is especially susceptible to the most dangerous forms of desire.

There is purpose to this process. Yes, the process will be so messy, so full of slime and mud and mire and cries for help that you can't help but wonder whether they are being heard or not. They are. As I said before, God isn't far off. He's just far more interested in your being prepared than in your being comfortable.

What if we could actually get to the place where we thanked God for letting us face this battle because of the rich treasures we discovered on the battlefield?

We'll tell you all about our broken places of yesterday but don't dare admit the limitations of our today.

Without challenges and changes people tend to grow increasingly distant from God and resistant to His ways.

This is the time for a young man to stop saying, "Why is life so hard?" He takes the hardness as the call to fight, to rise up, take it on.

Until a man learns to deal with the fact that life is hard, he will spend his days chasing the wrong thing, using all his energies trying to make life comfortable, soft, nice, and that is no way for any man to spend his life.

The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.

You must guard your heart with everything you've got, especially in times of disappointment and pain. Your secret weapon against the enemy's hatred is to love God right then and there, in the midst of the sorrow, whatever it may be.

I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound.

Love doth scathe The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses.

Excellence requires discomfort.