Contributed by John Boquist on Aug 9, 2008
“The suffering of Christ’s messengers ministers to those they are trying to reach and may open them to the gospel.” John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad p. 91
In this book, Piper tells the story of an indigenous missionary in India who walked barefoot from village to village sharing the gospel.
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Baptist
The psalmist, probably in similar trouble, feels like he’s in the depths of the pit, surrounded by darkness. The irony is that if you go to Bethlehem, as we did three years ago, you can celebrate Eucharist in St. Jerome’s cell, where he translated the Sacred Scriptures into Latin. To get there,
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Catholic
We’re going to study a book of the Bible that is often called the LETTER OF JOY. Paul uses the word JOY 20 times in the short little book of Philippians.
What makes that really impressive is that Paul wrote the letter from a prison cell. He was not only in prison; he was literally chained to a
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Christian/Church Of Christ
Jesus willingly put aside His divine glory and became the lowest of humans, a poor carpenter from a backwater town in Galilee. He suffered and because he obediently suffered the death of a slave, he was crowned with glory and honor. The idea was to bring many of God’s children to the same glory,
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Catholic
Contributed by Bruce Howell on Jan 22, 2009
A body is not crippled ’til its heart has ceased to praise. Louis Albert Banks tells of an elderly Christian man, a fine singer, who learned that he had cancer of the tongue and that surgery was required. In the hospital after everything was ready for the operation, the man said to the doctor, "Are
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Wesleyan
Job sat on his dunghill and reflected that he was not alone in his pain. Everyone awakes to the same reality–hard work or hard study and every day’s the same thing, and nothing you do ever seems to make a difference. The line is Bill Murray’s from Groundhog Day, but, especially in a tough
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Catholic
Contributed by Paul Carlson on Feb 16, 2009
Some of you know Helen Schaaf. I shared with the church her current physical struggles a few weeks ago. She had debilitating back pain that was making walking excruciatingly painful; finally, her doctor diagnosed a treatment for her. She had an injection in her spine so that she could walk
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Baptist
St. John of the Cross was right: "it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that
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Catholic
This week on the Today Show (November 2009) there was a young mother whose face had been disfigured in a plane crash and she was in the midst of many needed operations. Her little girl was asked how it all affected her and she said, “Mommy is nicer now.” This mother had received the blessing nobody
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Baptist
Contributed by Ross Cochrane on Dec 28, 2009
"It interests me that God tests me by allowing me to go through difficult situations in order to prove the quality of my character, the genuineness of my worship and the motivations of my service. What is your Marah?
I can sing praises easily when things are working out well for me. Throughout my
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Evangelical/Non-Denominational
Contributed by Timothy Brown on Feb 7, 2010
Illustration: A man found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn't seem to force its body past a certain point. Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the
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Baptist