We say, sorrow, disaster, calamity. God says, chastening and it sounds sweet to him though it is a discord to our ears. Don't faint when you are rebuked, and don't despise the chastening of the Lord. In your patience possess your souls.

Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord himself. Don't deify common sense.

Temptations in the life of faith are not accidents; each temptation is part of a plan, a step in the progress of faith.

A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.

God does not further our spiritual life in spite of our circumstances, but in and by our circumstances.

God nowhere tells us to give up things for the sake of giving them up. He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having - viz., life with Himself. It is a question of loosening the bonds that hinder the life.

Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.