The most remarkable observation one can make about this interface of exilic circumstance and scriptural resource is this: Exile did not lead Jews in the Old Testament to abandon faith or to settle for abdicating despair, nor to retreat to privatistic religion. On the contrary, exile evoked the most brilliant literature and the most daring theological articulation in the Old Testament.

There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.

As an Odd-Fish, it is not my job to be right,' said Sir Oort. 'It is my job to be wrong in new and exciting ways.

Suffering always reveal idols of the heart.

God brings us low, even to the point of death, in order to bring us up again.

Suffering related to circumstances beyond my control, suffering related to consequences of my besetting sin, and suffering caused by others who refused to see their own sin. In all these instances, the Lord has been at work, refining my focus upon personal holiness, amplifying my ministry through very humbling experiences, and reminding me repeatedly to extend grace not just to the gracious but to those who lack a grace I took too long to come to myself.

After you ride a roller coaster that's been going up for a year and a half, and you reach the pinnacle and then dive straight down with no gradual decline, it's a little disorienting. I didn't know how to take losing.

I suppose they think me an old man and imagine it is nothing for one like me to resign a life so full of trials. But I am not old - at least in that sense; you know I am not. Oh, no man ever left the world with more inviting prospects, with brighter hopes, or warmer feelings - warmer feelings.

The most humiliating word in the human language. But.

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From the evil which never arrived.