Author: Administrador

Some time ago an article in the paper recorded two deaths. A middle-aged couple died in each other’s arms—the result of a suicidal overdose of drugs—because they couldn’t face separation by death. A psychiatry professor at a large university and his wife left a suicide note explaining that the wife was suffering from emphysema and … Continue reading “SUICIDE”

Suspicion enters by the door through which love and trust exit.1355

Suffering can do several things in the life of a believer. First, it can “burn out the dross,” or purify us and lead us to greater holiness of life. But it can also “burn in the promises,” or lead us to a closer dependence on God and his faithful promises to us. Burn it will—but … Continue reading “SUFFERING, REASON FOR”

“A measure of a man’s success is not what he achieves, but what he overcomes” (Booker T. Washington).1339

Lorne Sanny, when president of the Navigators, had the following to say, “If you are suffering without succeeding, then someone will succeed after you.… If you are succeeding without suffering, then someone suffered before you.”1340

If you want to determine whether or not an air tank of the kind divers need is usable, you test it. Of course you do not test it when it is empty. No, you test it by subjecting it to pressure. And the pressure used in such a test is far beyond what would be … Continue reading “SUCCESS, TESTING IN”

As everyday experience often shows, stress and trials can strengthen a person. A seed that falls into a mere handful of soil next to a boulder can sometimes grow into a large tree by sending its roots down to the earth, roots that firmly wedge it onto the rock. The sequoia, the greatest of trees, … Continue reading “STRESS”

A man was lost in the Alps. The owner of the lodge where he had been staying sent out his best rescue dog to look for him. The dog found the man half-conscious, grabbed him, and started to shake him in order to wake him up. On coming to his senses the man, seeing the … Continue reading “SUBSTITUTION, EXAMPLE OF”

There was a godly Christian woman who startled her friends by saying, “There isn’t a sin of which I am not capable. I could be a prostitute; I could murder; I could embezzle.” Most of her friends were not impressed with her frankness. Instead they thought that she was displaying a false humility. Then she … Continue reading “SPIRITUAL PRIDE”

A letter from a missionary out in the jungles of New Guinea writing to his friends at home caught the nature of spiritual warfare: “Man, it is great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old devil’s heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement, slander, disease. He … Continue reading “SPIRITUAL WARFARE”