For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand. No matter how bad the present, an eternity with Christ in Heaven will be incomparably better. So if God thinks the whole thing is worth it—and we know it will be worth it to us once we reach Heaven—then why not affirm by faith, even in the midst of suffering, that it’s worth it now?

--Randy Alcorn via Facebook

The key to this for me is "by faith". In the middle of the worst of it, I just want out. Hope for heaven isn't really any comfort. But I just have to believe that it really will have been worth it even though I can't fathom it right now.

Romans 8:18

The Suffering God

The fact that the second member of the triune God suffered unimaginable torture on the cross should explode any notion that God lacks feelings. In the suffering of Jesus, God himself suffered. No one who grasps this truth can say, “God doesn’t unders...tand my suffering.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a Nazi prison camp, “Only the suffering God can help.”

--Randy Alcorn via Facebook

Randy Alcorn Quote on Suffering and Eternity

Shouldn’t we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?

--Randy Alcorn via Facebook

Romans 8:18

Discount Personal Feelings

Tim Challies offers us a quote from Jim Andrew’s Polishing God’s Monuments.

Suffering and What's Important

Suffering has a way of reminding us which things in life really matter, forcing us to depend radically on God, and thus purifying our obedience to God's will.

--Craig Keener, The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation

When we suffer...

Will There Also Be Faith?

See others here.

Power and Priority of the Word

We all know that life is filled with painful, heart wrenching experiences. Sometimes these experiences are spread out and sometimes they occur concurrently. The question is never ‘if’ but ‘when’ we think of pain and suffering. After all, we live in a cursed world.

...

Maturity does not happen overnight. It takes time. However, when folks are built up in, sustained by, and clinging to the Word of God they are mountains in the church of God. They stand with confident assurance in the steadfast love of the Lord God.

--Irish Calvinist Blog

Quote by Richard Baxter

He never brings them (the saints) into so low a condition that he does not leave them more cause of joy than sorrow.

-- Richard Baxter

"Have A Nice Day"

'Have a nice day' is like a threat to an Irish person. I'll have whatever kind of day I want. You mind your own business.

--Tommy Tiernan, Comedian, on how often he hears this phrase in the U.S.

Our Deepest Need

God Must Have Died

My Redeemer Is Faithful And True

by Steven Curtis Chapman

As I look back on the road I've travelled,
I see so many times He carried me through;
And if there's one thing that I've learned in my life,
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

CHORUS
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything He has said He will do,
And every morning His mercies are new.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

My heart rejoices when I read the promise
'There is a place I am preparing for you.'
I know someday I'll see my Lord face to face,
'Cause my Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

And in every situation He has proved His love to me;
When I lack the understanding, He gives more grace to me.

Little Is Much

Little Is Much

What is the measure of a life well lived
If all I can offer seems too small to give
This is a song for the weaker, the poorer
And so-called failures

Little is much when God's in it
And no one can fathom the plans He holds
Little is much when God's in it
He changes the world with the seeds we sow
Little is much, little is much

Who feels tired and under-qualified
Who feels deserted, and hung out to dry
This is a song for the broken, the beat-up
And so-called losers

Consider a Kingdom in the smallest seed
Consider that giants fall to stones and slings
Consider a child in a manger
Consider the story isn't over
What can be done with what you still have

--Downhere, Wide Eyed and Mystified

Download the album for free.

Spurgeon on Suffering

Please see the section related to Spurgeon:
Transparency: ...and more good... (part 2 of 3)
and follow the links if you have time. They are well worth reading.

Here is a quote from Spurgeon:

Is not this the reason why God’s servants are made to pass through so many trials, that they may really learn many truths not otherwise to be apprehended? Do we learn much in sunny weather? Do we not profit most in stormy times? Have you not found it so — that your sick-bed — your bereavement — your depression of spirit, has instructed you in many matters which tranquillity and delight have never whispered to you? I suppose we ought: to learn as much by joy as by sorrow, and I hope that many of my Lord’s better servants do so; but, alas! others of us do not; affliction has to be called in to whip the lesson into us.

How firm a foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you that for refuge to Jesus have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."

--Anonymous or at­trib­ut­ed var­i­ous­ly to John Keene, Kirk­ham, and John Keith

Piper and the Purpose of Suffering

Piper and the Purpose of Suffering

Why?

"Just as God has used David's prayer of confession and repentance of his adultery in Pslam 51 to minister to His people down through the centuries, so God has used Job's struggles with doubt about the goodness of God to minister to His people.

...

Though we don't want to be critical of Job, we do want to learn from him about the sinfulness of asking a demanding 'why?' of God.

But though we should never ask a demanding 'why?' we may and should ask God to enable us to understand what He may be teaching us through a particular experience. But even here we must be careful that we are not seeking to satisfy our souls by finding some spiritual 'good' in the adversity. Rather we must trust God that He is working in the experience for our good, even when we see no beneficial results. We must learn to trust God when He doesn't tell us why, when we don't understand what He is doing."

--Jerry Bridges, Trusting God

Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Romans 8:28
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

The sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God....All evil is subject to Him, and evil cannot touch His children unless He permits it. God is the Lord of human history and of the personal history of every member of His redeemed family.

--Margaret Clarkson, Grace Grows Best in Winter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1984), pages 40-41

The Power of the Cross of Christ

"Remember, he [the thief on the cross] was crucified. It was a crucified man trusting in a crucified Christ. Oh, when our frame is racked with torture, when the tenderest nerves are pained, when our body is hung up to die by we know not what great length of torment, then to forget the present and live in the future is a grand achievement of faith! While dying, to turn your eye to another dying at your side and trust your soul with Him is very marvelous faith."
- Charles Spurgeon, The Power of the Cross of Christ

HOPE – FOR THOSE WHO FEEL NO HOPE

"This poem and the piece at the beginning are intended as an encouragement for those for whom the feeling of hope is a real struggle."

HOPE – FOR THOSE WHO FEEL NO HOPE - Wings of Madness message board