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by L B Cowman
"Perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10).
Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves.
Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.
I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: "Do you know what you have got on your back?" The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: "It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel."
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Some day, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and moulding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder. --Cortland Myers
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Suffering is a wonderful fertilizer to the roots of character. The great object of this life is character. This is the only thing we can carry with us into eternity... To gain the most of it and the best of it is the object of probation. --Austin Phelps
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"By the thorn road and no other is the mount of vision won."
Source: Streams in the Desert
See Also:
Quicken Us Through Troubles
God shows us the troubles. Sometimes, as this part of our education is being carried forward, we have to descend into "the lower parts of the earth," pass through subterranean passages, lie buried amongst the dead, but never for a moment is the cord of fellowship and union between God and us strained to breaking; and from the depths God will bring us again. ...The Problem of Universal Suffering by Doug Focht, Jr.
Suffering is both universal and personal. Nations at war, mass starvation and disease, these are examples of universal suffering. To be precise, all suffering is universal in that it happens to all, but when it happens to me it becomes personal.The Problem of Personal Suffering -Part 1 by Doug Focht, Jr.
The understanding of suffering does not necessarily ease the pain, but it tends to shorten it, because we see our lives in a different and broader perspective. In this article, we will consider the relationship between universal and personal suffering. We will do this by seeing personal suffering as a microcosm of universal suffering because, after all, that's what it is!The Problem of Personal Suffering - Part 2 by Doug Focht, Jr.
We all know of righteous men and righteous women who seem to have known little but suffering and sorrow most of their lives. Perhaps they have lost their spouses in tragic and sudden ways, or they may be suffering from debilitating diseases that waste away the body. In general, we know about them not because they succumb to their situations but because, like Job, they prevail.
Suffering | General Sermons | Lectionary Sermons | Spiritual/Moral Articles | Malankara World Journal | Malankara World Library
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