problems on Tragedy

I’ve known a lot of people who have lived painful, tragic lives. When I was young, I assumed these people were abnormal. Their suffering was the exception that proved the rule that a well-lived life i...

Our worst things are often our best things. . . . There is blessing concealed in the righteous man’s crosses, losses, and sorrows. The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and...

How many shortcuts have been justified with the best of intentions? At the sentencing for her role in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, actress Lori Loughlin addressed the court:  “I mad...

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

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.

The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.

We are the miracle of miracles, the great inscrutable mystery of God.

I have read that each of us experiences a relatively significant crisis on an average of once every six months or so.

Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...

All of our problems stem from our failure to reflect the image of God.

In a poignant tribute written after his son’s passing in a climbing accident, Nicholas Wolterstorff reflects: When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer he...

[I] know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems....

We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.”

Robert C. McFarlane was a well-known businessman in the Los Angeles area. He had moved to California from Oklahoma in 1970, and within just a few days of his arrival—due to a disastrous misunderstandi...

Ultimately, every problem I see in every person I know is a problem of moving too fast for too long in too many aspects of life.

God of grace, power and glory, and our Heavenly Father: You raise up nations in your grace and holiness; and You bring down nations who go after and serve other gods of their own making. You are good–...

Let us thank God that he makes us live among the present problems…It is no longer permitted to present problems.... It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.

The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy describes a view (not his own view, because Tolstoy was a Christian) of the human person, based on a theory of reality he saw emerging in his day. It is a narrative that...

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

Here’s to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

Notes on the Passage 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, Ja...

Do not fear the conflict, and do not flee from it; where there is no struggle, there is no virtue.

A wise and good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.

“There’s nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can’t prolong.”

Pastor: Lord, we confess that too often we don’t live as people filled with the light of eternity. People: We complain. We focus on the problems we face and not the blessings you give. Pastor: 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...

A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in  The Philokalia  about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg...

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

Self-deception . . . blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception ob...

Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything...