God wants you to come to Him when you are weak, troubled, doubting and fearful.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

If you will hang in there, when you come out the other side, you will be doubly blessed and spiritually stronger.

It is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us, that decides our direction and destiny.

Sometimes bad things happen not because of one persons sins but because we live in a fallen world.

If God were small enough for our finite minds to understand Him completely, He would not be big enough to be God.

To the believer, this fallen world is as bad as it gets. To the unbeliever this fallen world is as good as it gets. This world is as close to hell as the believer will ever be. This world is as close to heaven as the unbeliever will ever be.

"Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out?"

"In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak."

Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees.

28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

28 Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you.

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.

So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did regularly.

Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?"

1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.  4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.  5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

"It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins," Jesus answered. "This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Doesn't your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn't your life of integrity give you hope?

"Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed?

My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.

My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.

Then he said to the woman, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you."

17 And to the man he said, "Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains.

8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

8 "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord.
"And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
12 "For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,
And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;
And it shall be to the Lord for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

You will give truth to Jacob
And mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old.

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed —  10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

No weapon formed against you shall prosper,

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."