“For a while, you could compartmentalize [your troubles], but now it’s just leaking over everything. When enough time goes by and things aren’t going our way, we often deal with that prolonged discouragement with denial.”- Kyle Idleman “This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival […]
“Pick what you like, then see how it grows. If that little plant dies in a week, well, then you’ve learned something. But another outcome is also possible. What if it blooms?”- Emily P. Freeman (emphasis author’s) In Chapter 20 (“Pick What You Like”) of The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman observes that it’s […]
“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.”- Markus Zusak “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and say on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with […]
“If discouragement becomes a lifestyle of complaint, it can throw us into a state of moral paralysis. When that happens, we are stuck not only with our suffering but also with finding little reason in the middle of it to do the good things that God calls all his children to do.”- Paul David Tripp […]
“When discouragement sets in and becomes the lens through which you see life, when it forms your assumptions about your life, and when it begins to shape your functional theology, you tend to complain.”- Paul David Tripp “Yet, you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. And you […]
Left unchecked, discouragement will become your eyes and ears, determining what you see and hear and how you see and hear it . . . It will cause you to see negative where nothing is negative and miss the positive that is right in front of you.”- Paul David Tripp In Chapter 8 (“The Discouragement […]
“One of the main battles Christians face is discouragement. The Enemy knows it’s going to take a massive amount of courage to do what God has called us to do and become the person God has called us to be.”- Banning Liebscher “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some […]
“God is the master architect of the complicated, confusing, and even contradictory constructs that we call our souls.”- Judah Smith Pastor Judah Smith concludes Chapter 3 of How’s Your Soul? by noting that perhaps our souls surprise us- but they don’t surprise God. The up-and-down tendencies of our hearts fail to shock or scandalize Him. […]
“Our longing for life keeps confusing us about the purpose of life.”- John Eldredge As John Eldredge concludes Chapter 17 of Moving Mountains, he asks us how we would explain that fact that throughout history a multitude of saints would testify that even though they endured terrible affliction and their most fervent prayers went unanswered, […]