Joni Eareckson Tada Quotes

God permits what He hates in order to accomplish something that He loves.

I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good.

Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise.

The Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. I believe that. Because I've seen it all work.

God loves us all, wants us all to share his kingdom, has a role for us all.

God made us. He's in charge of everything, right? If He didn't like us, why didn't he change us?

God uses whoever he wants.

If I had to imagine omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power in the universe that chose to make my mother suffer, I don't know how I would make that make sense in the universe.

I do not believe that God has imposed suffering upon anyone to punish them or to teach them a lesson.

Ask yourself: if that is what Jesus is all about - that is, getting us to love one another - then why did everyone reject him?

Almost every time I am in a lectureship on a college campus, young people will say, If there is a God and if he is a loving and merciful God, how do you explain the problems of suffering and death and all the tragedies that happen to people?

In this one book are the two most interesting personalities in the whole world - God and yourself. The Bible is the story of God and man, a love story in which you and I must write our own ending, our unfinished autobiography of the creature and the Creator.

I'm honest enough to say I don't know everything. You know, I don't. I don't understand all of God. I don't understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.

God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.

However dark and profitless, however painful and weary, existence may have become, life is not done, and our Christian character is not won, so long as God has anything left for us to suffer, or anything left for us to do.

God will finish what He authors, but He is not obligated to finish what He has not authored.

Sometimes it looks like God's abandoned you, but not for any reason. To make your faith grow and to see that, no matter what happens, you come out OK... It's all for your good. It's all for love, and it's all for making you a strong person.

It is axiomatic that the Cross we get is the one we most dislike: we would choose any other. But it is equally true that the Cross which is ours is the one Christ wants us to bear.

The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom, and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best lights He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay.

Unfortunately, some Christians are guilty of throwing out an equivalent sentiment when they play the "God is sovereign" card as a way to trump every evil that comes your way.

I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering.

Really, doesn´t everything make sense? There are, of course, things from which we more or less recover, although some of them are too harsh even for saints. But that is no reason to accuse God. Even if there are reasons to doubt him, the fact that he did not arrange the world like a well-ordered parlor is not one of them. It speaks rather in his favor. This used to be much better understood.

The unceasing activity of the Creator whereby, in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory.

I know that God is not going to willfully hurt us. Why there is suffering is the business of the Lord, but He never seems to give us more than we can bear.

All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?