Quotes on How Suffering is Inevitable
"Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful, with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo . . . the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal or trivial to be endurable. This of course is what the cross signifies, and it is the cross more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ." Malcomb Muggeridge
"Sorrow is pain for which there are sources of consolation. Sorow comes from losing one good thing among others, so that, if you experience a career reversal, you can find comfort in your family to get you through it. Despair, however, is inconsolable because it comes from losing an ultimate thing. When you lose the ultimate source of your meaning or hope, there are no alternate sources to turn to. It beaks your spirit." Tim Keller - "Counterfeit Gods"
"Whoever the Lord has adopted ought to prepare themselves for hard, toilsome and unquiet living." John Calvin
"Suffering is getting what you do not want while wanting what you do not get." JI Packer
"There is no university for a Christian, like that of sorrow and trial." CH Spurgeon
"There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it is sickness, and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health." CH Spurgeon
"There's a 2 fold participation and fellowship in the death of Christ 1. inward - mortification of the flesh/crucifixion of the old man 2. outward - mortification of the outward man - the endurance of the cross.” John Calvin
“Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him” 2 Timothy 2:11
"All the children of God are destined to be conformed to Christ. The more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ: Philippians 3:10 - 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 2 Thessalonians 1:4-5 - 4Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. 5All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. " John Calvin
"The real proof of spiritual poverty is to patiently endure the loss of worldly goods and without any regret when it pleases our heavenly Father that we should be despoiled of them." John Calvin
"The marks of Jesus are imprisonment, chains, scourgings, blows and stoning in bearing testimony to the Gospel. Galatians 6:17 - 17 Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." John Calvin
"The sufferings of Christ are the means of forgiveness of sin and eternal glory" John Calvin
"He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore, he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly. For they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works. Thus they call the good of the cross, evil and the evil of a deed, good. God can only be found in suffering and the cross." - Martin Luther
"The self denial implies that we ought to give up our natural inclinations and part with our affections of the flesh and give our consent to be reduced to nothing: Matthew 16:24-25 - 24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." John Calvin
"After 50 years, is it not clear that God has raised up new illnesses connected with fornication? From where do these things come if not from the hand of God? [In response to these diseases] The world was astounded, and people were terrified for a time, but they have not, to this day, observed the hand of God." John Calvin
"Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance...... " John Calvin
"If the first mark of a true and living church is love, the second is suffering. The one is naturally consequent on the other. A willingness to suffer proves the genuineness of love. John Stott What Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1 - 3 (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2003) 35
"Bonhoeffer has a distinction between "general suffering" and "Christian suffering." The former casts a foreboding shadow over all earthly life. Just as no one exits this world alive, so no one escapes suffering in some degree, although one of its enigmatic features is its unequal distribution. General suffering encompasses all the misery, illness, pain and death which is inexplicably part of the human condition, and Bonhoeffer attributed it not to the will of God but to the sin and evil resulting from the fall. Christian suffering, by contrast, is a specific kind of suffering which, for Bonhoeffer has three main features: first, it is voluntary; second, it is bearing the burdens of others; and, third, it is done for the sake of Christ. This is suffering that one freely and gladly assumes in the loving of one's neighbor or neighborhood. As such, it is nothing other than answering the demands of Christian discipleship. According to Bonhoeffer, this suffering entails the active following of Jesus into a hurting and often hostile world, doing the "extraordinary" not from some heroic impulse but from the prompting of the Spirit of Christ." Bonhoeffer's favorite passage of Scripture for summing up his concern was Paul's admonition, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ"" (Gal 6:2). John Godsey on Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"When disaster comes into a person's life, it reveals what's truly in their hearts." Kimber Kauffmann - pastor College Park church
"There are no crown bearers in heaven that were not cross bearers on earth" Spurgeon
"If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life." Agatha Christie
"The deep meaning of the cross of Christ is that there is no suffering on earth that is not borne by God." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Must the Christian go around looking for a cross to bear, seeking to suffer? No, insisted Bonhoeffer. Opportunities for bearing crosses will occur along life's way and all that is required is the willingness to act when the time comes. The needs of the neighbor, especially those of the weak and downtrodden, the victimized and the persecuted, the ill and the lonely, will become abundantly evident." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The universe is a soul making machine, and part of that process is learning, maturing, and growing through difficult and challenging and painful experiences. The point of our lives in this world isn't comfort, but training and preparation for eternity." Lee Strobel
"Courage would be impossible in a world without pain." Lee Strobel
"Why should the righteous suffer?" "Why not?" replied Lewis......"They're the only ones who can handle it." CS Lewis
"The most devastating effect of sin is that by it, we are blinded to it." Billy Graham
"How are you doing?" - - - better than I deserve.........." John Piper
"Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy." Philip Yancey
"Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear always precedes the crown we wear." Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One of the things I have noticed about illness is that it draws you inside yourself. When we are ill, we tend to focus on our own pain and suffering. We may feel sorry for ourselves or become depressed. But by focusing on Jesus' message - that through suffering we empty ourselves and are filled with God's grace and love - we can begin to think of other people and their needs; we become eager to walk with them in their trials. My decision to discuss my cancer openly and honestly has sent a message that when we are ill, we need not close in on ourselves from others. Instead, it is during these times when we need people the most." Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, 1928 - 1996 from Newsweek magazine, November 25, 1996.
"If you suffer, thank God. It is a sure sign you're alive." Elbert Hubbard
"Pure suffering has a consciousness, a tongue, a heart all its own and even the memory of it is but a pale unreality when compared with the actual experience." Mike Mason, The Gospel According to Job
"The only thing wrong with Christianity is the lack of suffering." Winston Churchill
"Suffering is inevitable; misery is an option." Tom Blossom, Pastor, Garfield Park United Church of Christ, Indianapolis, IN
"The world believes pain is the enemy; However, God did not create pain for us to ignore it." Tom Blossom, Pastor, Garfield Park United Church of Christ, Indianapolis, IN
"When Jesus bids a man, He calls him to come and die." D. Bonhoeffer, German theologian
"Suffering is not an elective, it is a core course in the University of Life." Steven J. Lawson, When All Hell Breaks Loose You May be Doing Something Right
"Jesus has no tenderness toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a man in service to Him. If God brings to your mind a vese which hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt." Andrew Murray
"If we were never depressed we would not be alive - - only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. Whenever you examine yourself, take into your capacity for depression," Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
"You could fill bottles of tears just shed in the past few weeks from the people in this room " Kimber Kauffman, pastor College Park Baptist Church, Indpls IN
"None of us can come to the highest maturity witout enduring the summer heat of trials:
As the sycamore fig does not ripen unless it is bruised
As the corn does not leave the husk without threshing
As the wheat makes no fine flour unless it is ground
so we are of little use until we are afflicted ! Kimber Kauffman, pastor College Park Baptist Church, Indpls IN
"Come to me O blessed trial, I need you. For you always draw me to the arms of the Saviour." George Whitfield
"I've never heard anyone say the really deep lessons of life have come in times of ease and comfort. But, I have heard many saints say every significant advance I've ever made in grasping in the depth of God's love and growing deep with Him, have come through suffering." John Piper
"God loves you enough , trusts you enough, to let affliction come into your life to see whether you will exercise the muscles of faith while your physical muscles begin to atrophy." Rev. John Howe
"Being ill is just another way of living, but by the time we have lived through illness, we are living differently." Arthur Frank, At the Will f the Body.
"Now I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing, of visible or invisible things, so that I may but win Christ. Let fire and the cross, let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, only may I win Christ." (When he was thrown to the roaring lions to be devoured, he said) "I am the wheat of Christ: I am going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread." The martyr Ignatius, as told in Fox's Book of Martyrs
"Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows." Charles Reade
"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Roberta Flack
"Everone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently...Always be prepared to die....Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.....Everyone knows someone who died - so why is it so hard for us to learn how to die? Because most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do. However, facing death strips away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently." Morrie Schwatrz, Tuesdays with Morrie
"Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him." Joni Eareckson Tada
"Adversity often produces an unexpected opportunity. Look for it ! Appreciate and utilize it! This is difficult to do if you're feeling sorry for yourself because you're faced with adversity." John Wooden
"We will suffer a sharp painful disullisionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the fleshthat shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, the horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them." Oswald Chambers
