Quotes from Joni Eareckson Tada

God wants us to be a good example to others who are observing us.

There is this fine line between presenting to You all of my weakness and thinking that it can't be done. In Your strength, I find my own.

Referencing 2 Corinthians 4:6, Robert Hewitt compares jars of clay in the first century to the same value we would put on a cardboard box. Joni Eareckson Tada queries whether we would question God's right to leave some holes in the box in order to give glimpses of the treasure inside

Your heart, mind, hands and feet are stamped with the imprint of the Creator. Little wonder that the Devil wants you to be ashamed of your body.

God has determined to steer what He hates in a direction that He loves!

You westerners are the ones we can't understand. God has given you so much, you have been so blessed…why are so many people in your country so unhappy?

Suffering is having what you do not want, and wanting what you do not have. However, suffering is minimized when we equalize our desires to fit our circumstances. Subtract our wants, and we will be closer to contentment.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.

Oh, how we need to grasp the soul-settling hope found in the pages of God's Word--not only grasp it, but allow the hope of God to fill and overflow our hearts, transforming us into people who are confident and at peace with themselves, their God, and their circumstances.

With David, I sometimes sigh, "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my hear? How long will my enemy triumph over me?"1

But when God speaks, it's silver. Psalm 12:6 says, "The words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace…purified seven times." Purity and silver go together best when it comes to describing God's Word. Why does God choose this precious metal? Perhaps it's because gold requires impurities so it can bond. But not silver. God is less interested in attractiveness and more interested in purity.

True wisdom is found ins trusting God when you can't figure things out.

Here in the sub-Sahara, it seemed that the weaker people were, the harder they had to lean on God - and the harder they leaned on him, the greater their joy.

God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependency on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away.

This sin-stained planet would have ripped apart at the seams long ago were it not for the restraining hand of God.

Tada references the accusation in Jeremiah that the people have forsaken God as Living Water by remembering a hiking trip from her younger days. Reaching a clear stream at the end of her trip, she emptied her canteen of the warm, metallic-tasting water and filled up on fresh water.

There will, one day, be an existence for us that will be the ultimate in reality and experience, and we can understand this truth only by faith. What we see by faith is true reality.

Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness. —C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Gut-wrenching questions honor God. Despair directed at God is a way of encountering him, opening ourselves up to the One and only Someone who can actually do something about our plight. And whether we, like Greg, collide with the Almighty or simply bump up against him, we cannot be the same. We never are when we experience God.

To hunger is to be human, but to hunger for God is to feed on Him. Hunger and thirst after His righteousness and feed on Him in your heart. Taste and see that the Lord is good; it is He who will fill you to satisfaction.

Remember, Christ willed to be born poor, and He chose disciples who were living, for the most part, in poverty. Christ made Himself a servant of poor people. And He reminds us that whatever we do to help the least of the brethren--those most poor--we are personally ministering to Him.

It's music that can only come from particular instruments, broken in particular ways, and yielded with particular humility. I also believe it brings God glory in a way that is completely unique on earth or in the heavens. And that's a thought that keeps me going, too.

God's hands stay on the wheel of your life from start to finish so that everything follows his intention for your life. This means your trials have more meaning—much more—than you realize.

Your cross is your attitude about your dead-end job and your in-laws. It is your attitude about your aches and pains. Any complaints, any grumblings, any disputings or murmurings, any anxieties, any worries, any resentments or anything that hints of a raging torrent of bitterness--these are the things God calls me to die to daily.