Sign in with Facebook
“The gym exposes deficiencies in our bodies’ strength and stamina—and appearance. You can wear all kinds of daytime clothes that hide or minimize aspects of your body that you would like to be less visible to the eye. But in the gym, you cannot hide them. There you and your coach (and unfortunately everyone around you) can see where you bulge where you shouldn’t. It’s an incentive to get to work. And so this metaphor tells us that when life is going along just fine, the flaws in our character can be masked and hidden from others and from ourselves. But when troubles and difficulties hit, we are suddenly in “God’s gymnasium”—we are exposed. Our inner anxieties, our hair-trigger temper, our unrealistic regard of our own talents, our tendency to lie or shade the truth, our lack of self-discipline—all of these things come out.”
― Walking with God through Pain and Suffering
― Walking with God through Pain and Suffering
“To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.”
― The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
― The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Prov. 3:6)”
― The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
― The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
“In the first chapter, for example, when Job first gets all the bad news about the deaths of his children and the loss of his estate, we are told that “Job got up and tore his robe” and then he “fell to the ground” (Job 1:20), but then the author adds, “In all this Job sinned not” (Job 1:22). Here is a man already behaving in a way that many pious Christians would consider at least unseemly or showing a lack of faith. He rips his clothes, falls to the ground, cries out. He does not show any stoical patience. But the biblical text says, “In all this Job sinned not.” By the middle of the book, Job is cursing the day he is born and comes very close to charging God with injustice in his angry questions. And yet God’s final verdict on Job is surprisingly positive. At the end of the book, God turns to Eliphaz, the first of Job’s friends, and says: “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer (Job 42:7–9). Job’s grief was expressed with powerful emotion and soaring rhetoric. He did not “make nice” with God, praying politely. He was brutally honest about his feelings. And while God did—as we will see later—forcefully call Job to acknowledge his unfathomable wisdom and majesty, nevertheless God ultimately vindicated him. A Bruised Reed He Will Not Break It is not right, therefore, for us to simply say to a person in grief and sorrow that they need to pull themselves together. We should be more gentle and patient with them. And that means we should also be gentle and patient with ourselves. We should not assume that if we are trusting in God we won’t weep, or feel anger, or feel hopeless.”
― Walking with God through Pain and Suffering
― Walking with God through Pain and Suffering
Adriene’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Adriene’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
105 books
|
27 friends
324 books
|
30 friends
0 books
|
2 friends
3 books
|
42 friends
0 books
|
94 friends
4 books
|
333 friends
1 book
|
180 friends
1 book
|
77 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Adriene
Lists liked by Adriene
