life on planet earth on Affliction

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion ...

One of the main ways we move from abstract knowledge about God to a personal encounter with him as a living reality is through the furnace of affliction.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weakness…. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are n...

Christ saw his afflictions. Afflictions did not blind him, not stupefy him. Afflictions did not make him insensible to affliction (which is a frequent, but a desperate condition). He saw it. And he ma...

Beloved, have you ever thought that someday you will not have anything to try you, or anyone to vex you again? There will be no opportunity in heaven to learn or to show the spirit of patience, forbea...

I was listening to a lecture on friendship to prepare this sermon and the speaker used the movie The Bride of Frankenstein as an illustration. Now, for this to work, you have to put the movie Young...

Christian contentment does not mean that we passively accept afflicting circumstances, making no effort to improve our situation. Neither does it mean laying down for injustice in this world.

God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives.

On June 22, 2007, a hit-and-run incident left Daniel McConchie paralyzed from the waist down. McConchie states, “God has not healed my affliction, but he has taught me the power of lamenting to him ab...

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

All: Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the...

The Lord says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have surely seen the affliction of my people. I have heard their cry, for I know their s...

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east...

Modernized Version O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly ask you to look upon, visit, and relieve your sick servant N. for whom our prayers are desir...

Pastor: You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; ...

Our God is a righteous Judge who presides over all the earth. He defends the weak and the fatherless. He upholds the cause of the poor and the oppressed. He rescues the weak and the needy and delivers...

We will rise From the destruction From the ruins From the sin and isolation We will rise Building strong foundations Bridging the breach Making a way, a highway to our God We will rise in our ce...

Before 1348 leprosy is the most terrifying illness which people can imagine. Leprosy is known to us as Hansen’s disease but in the fourteenth century it can include all manner of skin ailments, includ...

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determinin...

I sense that mental illness resembles a bone fracture. Bones have remarkable durability, but also, once broken, can rapidly heal and be reset. With normal daily use, one might never be aware of past p...

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

St. Paul rejoices that his sufferings help to complete what is lacking of afflictions of Christ. This seems to mean two things. First that the Christian’s suffering (in this case the Apostle’s) are a ...

Lord God, we rejoice in your resurrection and in your promise to return. Help us live today as people who await the fulfillment of your kingdom. We confess we often look for comfort outside of you. Be...

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. He protects all of their bones. Not one of them is broken. Evil shall kill the wicked. Those who hate the righteo...

Almighty God, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, that he may govern and guide us according to your will, comfort us in all our temptations and afflictions, defend us from all error, and lead us in...

There are many who say to the Lord, "I give myself wholly to Thee, without any reserve," but there are few who embrace the practice of this abandonment, which consists in receiving with a ce...