God is not working to deliver to you your personal definition of happiness. If you're on that agenda page, you are going to be disappointed with God and you are going to wonder if he loves you. God is after something better—your holiness, that is, the final completion of his redemptive work in you.

Rather than suffering being connected to the bad things we have done, Scripture connects trials and difficulty to the good things God wants for us and is working to produce in us (see James 1:2—4).

Suffering doesn't so much change your heart as expose what has been in your heart all along.

Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly, but working for a large company is like being waterboarded.

When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

Persecution is designed to make you run away from the Word (Matthew 13:21).

The wilderness creates unusual pressures and challenges.

Mother Teresa. According to her own journal, she was in her dark night more or less from 1948 until near the time of her death in 1997.

As it was, the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.

“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped,