Don't distribute woundedness

If I’ve learned anything from studying narcissism, abuse, and trauma, it’s this – if our wounds go unhealed, we will distribute our woundedness to others. Pain that isn’t healed is hurled in every direction. 

Chuck deGroat

Auden and self-examination

The same rules apply to self-examination as apply to auricular confession: Be brief, be blunt, be gone.

WH Auden

Knowing our afflictions are preparing us for incomparable glory (2 Cor. 4:17) means we can be honest about our struggles without being morbid about them. Paul is not minimizing the difficulty of ministry; he is maximizing our hope. In God’s sovereign hand, every single thing that rallies against us will one day serve us.

Every betrayal, every word of slander, every disappointment, every cheap shot, every failure, and every late-night anxiety—all of it will serve our joy in glory. Not one dark day will be wasted. These lose power to bully us when we see what they really are through the lens of eternity: God-ordained servants of our sanctification.
When we measure our present moments of difficulty by our guaranteed future, our anxieties turn into prayer; our weariness into courage. We don’t shrink back from whatever struggles Jesus may lead us into for the sake of his name. When the day of gospel pain turns up on our calendar, we stand firm; in Christ’s presence, on God’s Word, with and for God’s people.

In the end, every one of our afflictions will prove no different from a cloud that briefly blocked our view of the sun. Then, we will say of our darkest circumstances: Oh, Those? Those struggles? That pain? Nothing but light and momentary. Or in the words of Teresa of Avila, “In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.” 

Adam Ramsay

Burroughs: any condition but this one

We are usually apt to think that any condition is better than the condition in which God has placed us.

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p42

Wiersbe on doing what he did

Writing to me is a ministry. I’m not an athlete, I’m not a mechanic. I can’t do so many of the things that successful men can do. But I can read and study and think and teach. This is a beautiful, wonderful gift from God. All I’m doing is using what He’s given to me to teach people, and to give glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Warren Wiersbe

Tozer: the need of Presence

 There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. 

The Pursuit of God, p14

Owen: lost in the knowledge of God

“All the rational conceptions of the minds of men are swallowed up, and lost, when they would exercise themselves directly on that which is absolutely immense, eternal, infinite. When we say it is so, we know not what we say, but only that it is not otherwise. What we deny of God, we know in some measure, but what we affirm we know not;”

Excerpt From: Owen, John, 1616-1683. “The works of John Owen.” London : Printed for Richard Baynes, 1826. iBooks.