John Townsend
American clinical psychologist, leadership consultant, and best-selling author.
…the central message of the Bible is about God redeeming a humanity that is in trouble and suffering.
“Where are You?” can be both a protest against a problem and a search for understanding and perspective.
Our image of God, whom we can’t see, is deeply affected by people, whom we can see.
Though your experience may indicate that God has forgotten you or has left you alone, He is on your side. He is the God of grace, and He is actively working on your behalf.
He has always been here, and He is here now. He loves you and is working actively for your good in His own way.
I would not feel a lot of trust or hope in God if He was simply in touch with me without any impetus, power, or force to accomplish things. You may not always know the end game, but He is working for you.
Trust in and value the benefit of God’s compassion and identification.
It is a comfort to us that Jesus didn’t suffer in silence or with a smile.
Our tendency is to be strong, self-sufficient, and dependent on our own willpower, but rather than try harder, we should reach out to the God who is all-powerful…
The essence of grace is that God is for you.
David, the man after God’s own heart, got right to it and spilled out his guts about his experience: “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?”
Where do you go when hard times hit? Most of the time, our tendency is to enter our internal cave…we naturally shut down, withdraw from it all, and try to figure things out on our own, reemerging from life when we have some sense of centeredness.
…the big picture of our spiritual growth is not an event but the development of the habit of relationship with God.
…there is something beyond our circumstances, and that is an emotional, from-the-heart connection to God, no matter what is going on in our lives.
We want to know that life is good. Not perfect but good. Not problem free, but good. Good in some way that we did not anticipate. Good in some way that connects us to God, others, and our purposes in life.
Connecting with others during difficult times makes the trials more bearable.
God wants to help us and will bear our burdens.
What is faith? Faith is trusting God for your problems and for your life.
It is easy to think that we should put up a brave front and stay positive about all our struggles. But that is not the biblical model.
God has made Himself knowable through the Bible.