When tragedy strikes, we enter a crisis of faith. We
either move toward God or away from God.
There is no human experience which cannot be put on the
anvil of a lively relationship with God and man, and battered into a meaningful
shape.
Christianity doesn’t in any way lessen suffering. It
enables you to take it, to face it, to work through it, and eventually convert
it.
God’s Word empowers us not to evade suffering, but to
face suffering face-to-face with God.
In suffering, God is not getting back at you; He is
getting you back to Himself.
Shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.
No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.
We live in a fallen world and it often falls on us.
The world is a mess and it messes with our minds.
Spiritual friendship with God results in 20/20 spiritual
vision from God.
To deny or diminish suffering is to arrogantly refuse to
be humbled. It is to reject dependence upon God.
Crying out to God empties us so there is more room in us
for God.
Faith does not demand the removal of suffering; faith
desires endurance in suffering.
Faith understands that what can’t be cured, can be
endured.
Comfort experiences the presence of God in the presence
of suffering—a presence that empowers me to survive scars and plants the seed
of hope that I will yet thrive.
In this life, your scar may not go away, but neither
will His. He understands. He cares. He’s there.
Spiritual emergencies can produce spiritual emergence.
Faith looks back to the past recalling God’s mighty
works. Hope looks ahead remembering God’s coming reward.
In Christ, loss is never final. Christ’s resurrection is
the first-fruit of every resurrection.
When we wait on God, we cling to God’s rope of hope,
even when we can’t see it.
Hope waits. Hope is the refusal to demand heaven now.
Waiting is refusing to take over while refusing to give
up. Waiting refuses self-rescue.
In Christ, we move from victims to victors.”
God is a ‘time God.’ He does not come before time. He
does not come after time. He comes at just the right time.
Faith is entrusting myself to God’s larger purposes,
good plans, and eternal perspective.
Faith is seeing life with spiritual eyes instead of
eyeballs only.
Instead of our perspective shrinking, suffering is the
exact time when we must listen most closely, when we must lean over to hear the
whisper of God.
True, God shouts to us in our pain, but His answers, as
with Elijah, often come to us in whispered still small voices amid the thunders
of the world.
God’s eternal, heavenly story doesn’t obliterate my
earthly, painful story; it gives it meaning.
Grace math teaches us that present suffering plus God’s
character equals future glory. The equation we use is the Divine
perspective.
Worship is wanting God more than wanting relief.
Worship is finding God even when you don’t find
answers.
Worship is walking with God in the dark and having Him
as the light of your soul.
Every problem is an opportunity to know God better, and
our primary battle is to know God well.
Problems can either shove us far from God or drag us
kicking and screaming closer to Him.
All quotes attributed to Dr. Robert W. Kelleman, author of God's Healing for Life's Losses
