adversity on Comeback

George Gipp was the first All-American football player to play for Notre Dame. He played multiple positions including halfback, quarterback, and punter. His career was tragically cut short in 1920 whe...

I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

"When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person that walked in. That’s what the storm is all about."

During the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto broke his right knee while competing in the floor exercise. At the time, Japan and the Soviet Union fielded the world's ...

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffe...

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

When we’re chasing our dreams, all the turbulence we face shouldn’t scare us into pulling back, though. The shaking, jerking, and rattling in our lives are telling us we’re getting close to the breakt...

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Many of life’s annoyances just have to be ignored. That doesn’t mean that we suppress, ignore, or deny every pain. Serious pain has to be confronted. But one mark of resilience is learning to tell whi...

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

James Stockdale and what is now known as the Stockdale Paradox comes from his experience as a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam War. The Stockdale Paradox, made famous in Jim Collins’...

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.

Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcome. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.

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 ...

I…vividly remember one of my teachers telling the story of three young boys whose route to school went alongside a high wall. Every day as the boys walked to school, they wondered what was on the othe...

In his book Unshakeable Faith , Max Lucado shares a true story about a friend who competed in an Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. You can compete in Ironman races around the world in p...

Men (and woman) are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success.

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...

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity. Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.

A blessing for the courage to try Blessed are you, faced with the impossible.  You who do not take your eyes away  from what threatens to swallow you whole.  You who stare down reality,  tho...

A Tough Way to Start Ministry You don’t have to spend much time on Twitter or Facebook to be reminded that schadenfreude (taking joy from another's misfortune) is alive and well. Depending on w...

Preaching Commentary Besieged from All Angles The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Jar...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens “ What’s the historical context?” Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled A contemporary commentator ends each daily program with these words, “Let not your hearts be trou...

Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

Life asks not merely what you can do; it asks how much can you endure and not be spoiled.

Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress are all ways of describing natural human responses to adversity and the experiences of life. And we all face adversity in many different ways: challengin...

Preaching Commentary Jesus, Not Nero, is Supreme To understand any written document one must understand the purpose for which it was written.  Sometimes this is stated overtly, as in the Preamble t...