2 corinthians on Discouragement

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

While serving as British Prime Minister, Lloyd George had to deal with World War I, an economic depression, and the Sinn Fein movement attempting to effect Irish liberation, as well as many other smal...

Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When we wouldn’t love—You did. When we couldn’t do right—you could. When we wouldn’t give—You gave and gave all of yourself. So we come to You w...

Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu...

Adversity is not simply a tool. It is God's most effective tool for the advancement of our spiritual lives. The circumstances and events that we see as setbacks are oftentimes the very things that...

Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

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.

Maturation is a lifelong journey with different phases, human and spiritual. And it has many setbacks. What can be helpful is to have a grasp of the natural seasons of our lives and how these interfac...

We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of pe...

If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened.

All the accomplished gardeners I know are surprisingly comfortable with failure. They may not be happy about it, but instead of reacting with anger or frustration, they seem fairly intrigued by the pe...

When John Stuart Mill—the influential philosopher and political economist—arrived at Thomas Carlyle's door that evening, his face drained of color, bearing the devastating news that the manuscript...

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton discuss the poignant insight that it is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the Wildnerness. What does this...

Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challeng...

Hope is the physician of each misery.

Let us drink to the success of our hopeless cause.

Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken.

Fear and growth go together like macaroni and cheese. It’s a package deal. The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must re...

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope.

Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great , interviewed Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest-ranking officer in the Hanoi Hilton prisoner of war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Regarding the ...

Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.

Once, when the famous missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, was in Africa, he wrote home to England requesting more workers. In reply, he received this message: We would like to send more workers to y...

I spent a considerable amount of time with a guy I’ll call Martin. As a brand-new follower of Christ, Martin felt guilty for having previously embezzled a lot of money from his employer. After discuss...

It takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly tender and compassionate toward us just as we are—not in spite of our sins and faults (that would not be total acceptance), but with t...

Because of this we have hope: Two men look out through the same bars One sees mud, one sees stars.

Someone once said that faith is not a personal possession until you have suffered. That person understood that the very nature of faith requires the grit and courage to be in the dark so you can event...

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be serv...

A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour ...