Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

However much we do to avoid them, we shall never lack crosses in this life if we are in the ranks of the Crucified.

Real faith is refined in the fires and storms of pain.

Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

In the heroic effort of the handcart pioneers, we learn a great truth. All must pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. Yet this is part of the purging to become acquainted with God.

My Brethren if thou endure thy trials well though shalt be exalted.

The dark moments of our life will last only so long as is necessary for God to accomplish His purpose in us.

Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!

Life asks not merely what you can do; it asks how much can you endure and not be spoiled.

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

God, he deals you blows that at sometimes you think you can't handle and in the last year there have been things that we thought we couldn't handle but we've dealt with it up until this point.

It's in the difficult times that we're growing and you can't just rebuke everything hard. We've got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

Labour to grow better under all your afflictions, lest your afflictions grow worse, lest God mingle them with more darkness, bitterness and terror.

Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription.

How should thy patience be crowned in heaven if none adversity should befall to thee in earth? If thou wilt suffer none adversity how mayest thou be the friend of Christ?

Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives.

As in nature, as in the arts, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls as well as stones their lustre; the more the diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, their God has no end in view but to perfect His people's graces. Our Father, and and kindest of fathers, He afflicts not willingly; He sends tribulations, but hear St Paul tell their purpose, - "Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope."

There is no man who will not be grieved at the time of his chastisement; and there is not man who will not endure a bitter time, when he must drink the poison of temptations. Without them, it is not possible to obtain a strong will. When he has often experienced the help of God in temptations, a man also obtains strong faith.

The more the flesh is wasted by affliction, so much more is the Spirit strengthened by inward grace.

Trials are the soil in which faith flourishes.

If He put tribulation before you and said He will give you patience by giving you a little trouble along the way, wouldn't you take a little trouble? You say, 'Lord, I want all my highways paved.' the Lord says, 'I'm sorry, I can't accommodate you. I'm going to let you run over some bumps occasionally, so you will have patience.' You do not like the bumps, but you like the patience, and if you want the patience, you will have to take the bumps. And what is patience but experience?

Now, I wish to encourage those who are in the midst of hard trials, who feel their faith may be fading under the onslaught of troubles. There seems to me no better answer to the question of why trials come and what we are to do than the words of the Lord Himself, who passed through trials for us more terrible than we can imagine.

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable.

Through suffering we have endured the assaults of time; reverses have ever been our beginning; and out of the depths God has gathered us to his heart.

When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating him and quoting him and speaking of him. But only in suffering will we know Jesus.