Quotes regarding sufferings

Deny your weakness, and you will never realize God's strength in you. (Joni Eareckson Tada) Man, made in the image of God, has a purpose - to be in relationship to God, who is there. Man forgets his purpose and thus he forgets who he is and what life means. (Francis Schaeffer) We never know when our disappointment will be His appointment. (Charles Swindoll) The best prayers have often more groans than words. John Bunyan We do not choose suffering simply because we are told to, but because the one who tells us to describes it as the path to everlasting joy. John Piper Christianity is a battle - not a dream. Wendell Phillips This is God's universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in the world. John Piper Truly it is a misery even to live upon the earth. The more spiritual a man desires to be, the more bitter does his present life become to him; because he sees more clearly and perceives more sensibly the defects of human corruption. Thomas a Kempis Paul's sufferings complete Christ's afflictions not by adding anything to their worth, but by extending them to the people they were meant to save. John Piper God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them. C.S. Lewis "God's purpose in increasing our trials is to sensitize us to people we never would have been able to relate to otherwise." Joni Eareckson Tada "God deliberately chooses weak, suffering and unlikely candidates to get His work done, so that in the end, the glory goes to God and not to the person." Joni Eareckson Tada "Suffering drives us to our knees in weakness, where God wants us, so that His strength is most obvious, not ours." Joni Eareckson Tada "God wants us to lay our burdens on Him and rest in His love. It's His responsibility to work out the purpose and plan in our hardships. Only our refusal to trust Him....can hinder His purposes in our lives." Joni Eareckson Tada Canadian Mark Pickup (disabled with multiple sclerosis). He has said, “I have been more service to God disabled than during my able-bodied years. This didn’t happen despite my disability but because of my disability.” Joni Tada said it beautifully: "Sometimes God will use suffering and affliction to sandblast us to the core and get us seriously thinking about larger than life issues of heaven and hell, I just don't know that we would think about these issues were it not for an ice-cold splash of suffering waking us out of our spiritual slumber. God's purpose in redeeming us is not to make our lives happy, healthy, and free of trouble. It is not an escape from our physical pains. His purpose is to make us more like Christ. He will chose to allow spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis or blindness or stroke or Alzheimer's or whatever to not only teach us, but also our loved ones, about what it means to become more like him."