God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children. He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He uses that affliction for our good. God never wastes pain. He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son (see Romans 8:28-29).

You see, it is the effects of your being fired, not the act itself that determines whether you are tempted to become bitter.

Just as we should learn to stop asking why, or searching for rational explanations, or seeking to discover what "good" there is in our own adversities, so we must also learn to quiet our hearts in regard to God's government of the universe.

Above all else, our response to adversity should be to seek God's glory.

If I complain about the difficult circumstances of my life, I impugn the sovereignty and goodness of God and tempt my listener to do the same.

If we are going to learn to trust God in adversity, we must believe that just as certainly as God will allow nothing to subvert His glory, so He will allow nothing to spoil the good He is working out in us and for us.

It means we believe that God causes all events in our lives, whether good or bad as we judge them, to work together to conform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. It means we give thanks in all circumstances - not for the circumstance considered in itself, but for God's promise to use these circumstances to conform us more to Christ.

T]oday some people continue to view themselves as victims because of the historical suffering of their group and because it is easy and comforting to do so. And this renders happiness virtually impossible. First…perceiving yourself as a victim makes you unhappy. Second, it makes you permanently angry, which further guarantees unhappiness. Third, it enables you to avoid confronting whatever it is that is really making you unhappy.

I was blown up while we were eating cheese.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war.

They are not sorrows, so much as terrible things.