I know no sweeter way to heaven, than through free grace and hard trials together, and one of these cannot well want another.

Dashes and disappointments are not canonical Scripture.

I thought it had been an easy thing to be a Christian, and that to seek God had been at the next door, but oh, the windings, the turnings, the ups and the downs that He hath led me through! and I see yet much way to the ford.

Not one ounce, not one grain-weight more is laid on me than He hath enabled me to bear . . . Faith hath cause to take courage from our very afflictions; the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints. I know He but heweth and polisheth stones for the new Jerusalem.

find it most true, that the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptations; if my waters should stand, they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.

Be content, ye are His wheat growing in our Lord's field. And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument, in His barn-floor, and through His sieve, and through His mill to be bruised, as the Prince of your salvation, Jesus, was (Isa. 53:10), that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house.

God hath called you to Christ's side, and the wind is now in Christ's face in this land; and seeing ye are with Him, ye cannot expect the lee-side or the sunny side of the brae.

I see grace growth best in winter.

The thorn is one of the most cursed and angry and crabbed weeds that the earth yields, and yet out of it springs the rose, one of the sweetest smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye.

T]hose who can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship.

do not faint; the wicked may hold the bitter cup to your head, but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it. They strike, but God moves the rod; Shimei curseth, but it is because the Lord bids him.

Leaders spend 5% of their time on the problem & 95% of their time on the solution. Get over it & crush it!