Second Guessing God Quotes

“Suffering is pointless when it is without meaning, and suffering is without meaning, ultimately, when what we’ve suffered isn’t put to some greater use. Let”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Don’t waste your pain.” The question we need to ask ourselves when God allows us to go through hard times is not why but who? In the mind of God, pain always has two intended recipients: us and someone else. If we choose not to take what we’ve experienced and find some way of using it to help other people, we miss a large part of why God allowed us to suffer in the first place.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“My Utmost for His Highest, “Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“When you are in suffering say, “Yes, Father” and strength will flow into your heart.10 This is a vow of praise. By making such a vow, we’re saying that no matter how alone, abandoned, and betrayed we feel, we will not turn back. By making a vow of praise, we’re not forgetting what has happened to us or letting God off the hook. A vow of praise is a declaration in defiance of despair. It is a proclamation to ourselves and those around us.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Maybe the reason the psalms of lament portray people praying for the destruction of their enemies is because we can’t love our enemies until God gives us the ability to love them. And maybe God can’t give us the ability to love our enemies until we’ve expressed to him, in specific detail, the full brunt of our rage and hatred for our enemies. Maybe it’s not until we’ve pulled every last ounce of hatred out of our hearts and flung it onto the lap of God that we can authentically love our enemies.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“This is what he felt. How about you? What has caused you pain? What has made you want to end your life? What has so completely broken your soul that you wonder if you’ll ever be able to recover? Tell that to God. Dispense with the polite, positive self-talk and ask God directly, Where were you when this happened? Were you sleeping? Are you lazy? Are you too chicken and you’re hiding? Take the psalms of lament as your permission slip to be honest with God.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Hope is a woman whose presence fills whatever room the demons leave.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Pain humbles us and breaks us so thoroughly that we become almost incapable of delivering a spiritual message in a condescending manner.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Trials have a way of doing that. Trials have a way of allowing us to see what’s really important in life.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Jesus understood that the two most important things we do in life are to love God and love people. That’s it. When we stray from these commands, he sometimes allows us to experience trials. Trials take his place and refocus our attention on what’s important. They remind us how quickly we can lose people. They remind us that each person in our life is a gift.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“God’s presence becomes a reality through our wounds.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“The only situation that comes bearing the gift of second sight is the one we try to avoid at all costs: trials—painful, prolonged, heartbreaking trials. Yet, I believe that if the situation that gives this gift is so painful, then God must know that the reward we receive will be equally incredible. What does God see that we don’t? What could be so important, so special, and so life-changing that God allows us to experience heartbreak just to catch a glimpse”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“The second thing that happens when we doubt is that we are forced to discipline our emotions.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“This part of me is certain, with every ounce of conviction it can muster, that we’re not alone here. The Bible calls this conviction faith.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Do you want to know what I’ve learned to trust? I trust the eyes of my heart. I’ve learned to trust that part of me that measures beauty and love and passion and truth, all”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Also (I’m sure you can tell by now, but it bears repeating), I’m not an objective observer when it comes to being blindsided by life. I think that’s important for you to know. In my journey those who have comforted me the least have always been those who knew all the right answers but had never been through what Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.10 That’s God’s agenda.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan

“promise you can count on one thing: when the last grain of sand is finally gone, you’re going to discover that you’re standing on a rock.”
― Brian Jones, Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan