Quotes about Suffering

our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good.

I realized I knew the truth regarding God's sovereignty. What I had to do was to decide if I would trust Him, even when my heart ached. I realized anew that, just as we must learn to obey God one choice at a time, we must also learn to trust God one circumstance at a time. Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will. I never

We have somehow gotten the idea that the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10 means an abundance of health, wealth, and happiness. The idea of suffering for the sake of Christ is foreign to us. We have substituted the pursuit of happiness for the pursuit of holiness. We hesitate to sacrifice even our material possessions for His cause, let alone sacrificing our lives or the lives of our children upon the altar of His service.

If we desire to experience the totality of fellowship with Christ, we must expect to experience the fellowship of His sufferings.

Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

The universal testimony of those who have suffered for the sake of Christ and His church is that they have experienced a deep fellowship, an intimate communion with Him in the midst of their sufferings.

But God never explains to us what He is doing, or why. There is no indication that God ever explained to Job the reasons for all of his terrible sufferings.

When I say we should never ask why, I am not talking about the reactive and spontaneous cry of anguish when calamity first befalls us or one we love. Rather, I am speaking of the persistent and demanding why that has an accusatory tone toward God in it.

In contrast, there are sixteen whys in the book of Job, according to author Don Baker. Sixteen times Job asked God why. He is persistent and petulant. He is accusatory toward God. And, as has been observed by many, God never answered Job's why. Instead He answered who.

Most of us are tempted, from time to time, to question God's love for us.

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).

As Lamentations 3:33 states, "For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men."