“If we have an impoverished view of God, we will become impoverished ourselves.  If we have constructed in our minds a god who is weak and impotent and not in control of every detail of the universe, we will see ourselves as being helpless and will be overwhelmed by the storms and circumstances around us.  If our god is worthless, we will see ourselves as being worthless.”

“Bringing our prayer requests to God repeatedly is not a matter of asking God and then reminding Him over and over again in case He’s forgotten … It’s wonderful when you pray for something only once and you experience God’s answer.  But growth and maturity come when you learn how to pray repeatedly, until you have the satisfaction of seeing clearly how God has answered.”

“There are times when God actually causes His children to face hunger and other needs to teach us that our most basic needs are not physical but spiritual and that He Himself is the provision for the deepest needs of our hearts.”

 “God is gracious to sinners, protecting them from the physical consequences that their sins deserve.  And He is gracious to those who are obedient and faithful, allowing them to experience physical problems as a way to keep them from getting too settled in any place other than heaven.”

“While we focus on good results, God focuses on the process of making us good. We judge His faithfulness on the basis of how many of our desires He has met … But this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what God is doing. He is working on something much grander.”

 “God says that He has given us everything we need to live a godly life. But ‘everything’ does not mean everything we need to fulfill our own definition of happiness … When we conclude that Christians should have greater personal, temporal happiness than the unbeliever, we will have difficulty seeing the good God is doing.”

“On the problem of suffering, Scripture is the expert.  Through it, God offers hope, compassion, and the power to grow in faith and obedience in the midst of the suffering. For families, it provides practical guidelines on how to love and serve the person who is struggling.”

“What does God offer the suffering, discouraged, embittered individual?  A set of principles?  A way to get the things we want?  No, much more and much different.  God offers Himself.  He is our identity, our riches, our strength, our future, and our hope.  He is what we need.”

 "I’m still learning that all my emotions are okay, part of the process, and good for me to feel.  It’s better than feeling numb, although being numb can be easier.”

“Trial and suffering are no indication that God has forsaken His promises. Rather, they demonstrate His unshakable, faithful, redeeming love. He loves us so much that even when we don’t ‘get it,’ He will continue His work in us until it is complete.”

“The apostle Paul taught that suffering is an essential course in God’s curriculum for all believers. ‘We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22).”

“Most people, regardless of their theology, live from day to day without any sense of their eternal destiny.  It just doesn’t fit the way they think about their lives.  But the Bible says that it is impossible to understand what God is doing or to face hard times successfully if the reality of eternity is missing from the picture.”

“Everyone goes through hard times.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of.  Sometimes our prayers help us to avoid them.  Sometimes not.  It’s the attitude we have when we go through them that matters most.  If we are filled with anger and bitterness, or insist on complaining and blaming God, things tend to turn out badly.  If we go through them with thankfulness and praise to God, He promises to bring good things despite them. He says to ‘count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience’ (James 1:2-3).”

"The reason many retain faith in God while in the midst of suffering is that they have a history with God.  Over the years they've experienced God's goodness and have come to trust him.  While instances of evil challenge a believer's trust in God, they don't wipe out faith.  Somehow, based on what they know about God, individuals still believe the best of him."

“All of us have had seasons when we feel we just can’t keep going; we just can’t take any more.  As with every other of deception, the key to defeating this lie is to counter it with the truth.  Regardless of what our emotions or our circumstances may tell us, God’s Word says, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’ (2 Corinthians 12:9).”