Charles R. Swindoll Quotes

I don't know a single person who truly seems to bear the mark of God's presence and power in his or her life who hasn't been asked by God to be obedient in a way that was dramatically painful.

There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.

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

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.

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

God does not owe me an explanation for what He does in my life. And if I am looking for that to feel better about my suffering, then I'm not going to get it.

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

Christ has no velvet crosses.

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

Christian history looks glorious in retrospect; but it is made up of constant hard choices and unattractive tasks, accepted under the pressure of the Will of God.

Jesus Christ has to suffer and be rejected... Suffering and being rejected are not the same.

Men will never be great in theology until they are great in suffering.

It is not God's way that great blessings should descend without the sacrifice first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be spread to any wide extent among the people, how can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and trouble shall not accompany its going forth.

If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?

If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God.

Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing.

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.

There's nothing glorious about war. There's nothing glorious about holding your friends in your arms and watching them die. There's nothing glorious about having to leave your home for 6 to 8 months while your family's back here and you're away.

Listen - pacemaker, crash, stroke. What does it mean? God doesn't want me now. That's all.

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

My life is so full of sacrifices.

It's so easy to settle for less than God's best for us because we don't always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God's will.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

I remember people who'd had a lot of hardship during the war. They'd thought we'd won.

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.