Quotes About Struggle

Firing employees is not much fun. Getting fired is even less fun.

Some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of importance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality.

Yacen aquí los despojos de un pobre viajero. Murió defendiendo su derecho de paso: Razón le sobraba, estaba en lo justo, lo cierto. Mas tan muerto está como si hubiera errado.

these universities decided they could struggle along somehow without my help.

The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality.

Like King Saul, many of us have our own versions of a witch of Endor (1 Sam 28).

We humans, though, on our own—manipulating the natural powers around us, whether of the atom or of social processes—are truly a terrifying phenomenon. We easily appear to be completely out of control today, careening madly toward the edge of the cosmic cliff. Candid observers quickly come to the conclusion that there is some pervasive and basic lack in human life.

Satan's efforts to defeat God's purposes for humankind. This is the basic idea behind all temptation: God is presented as depriving us by his commands of what is good.

if we think we are facing an irresistible cosmic force of evil, it will invariably lead to giving in and giving up—usually with very little resistance. If you can convince yourself that you are helpless, you can then stop struggling and just "let it happen." That will seem a great relief—for a while. You can once more be a normal human being. But then you will have to deal with the consequences. And for normal human beings those are very severe.

men of the modern world exist in a continual and flagrant antagonism between their consciences and their way of life."1 There

The only way the devil can hurt God is through humans, and so he focuses upon us. His strategy is to try to frustrate God's purpose for humanity

we see a clear pattern: Satan's constant deception of human beings.

This "world" is marked by three spiritual dynamics that John identifies as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16).

Satan uses not only our desires to deceive us but also our fears. Fear that we will not get what we desire can provide the motivation for actions that cause so many of our problems.

I remember a time I went to him with a more personal problem: "Hey Dallas, my heart is breaking, I can't fix it, I don't understand it, and I'm sadder than I've ever been in my life." There was a long pause. With Dallas there's always a long pause. And then he said, "This will be a test of your joyful confidence in God.

disease, scarcity, and weather-related disasters.

desires are terrible masters. The objects of desire may differ; I may want to eat or sleep, I may want to dominate others, I may want great wealth. Taken by themselves, desires are inherently chaotic and deceitful (James 4:1–3; Eph. 4:22).

So we do not have the strength we should have, and Jesus' commandments become overwhelmingly burdensome to us. In fact, many Christians cannot even believe he actually intended for us to carry them out. So what is the result? His teachings are treated as a mere ideal, one that we may better ourselves by aiming for but know we are bound to fall glaringly short of.

As far as expressing the creative turmoil within my head was concerned, I took to the English language as a duck takes to water. I was therefore a keen accomplice and student in my own mental colonisation.

Forgive me my friend, I tried to hold on, but you fell, you fell

Apartheid has fallen, see, we die right next to each other now, in intimate proximity. It's just the living part we still have to work out.

Oh, i can deal with the tragedy, it's the farce I can't handle.

The route to facing what we feel is not by devaluing the darkness of what we feel, but by valuing the deep structure of why we don't want to feel. Once we face why feeling is so hard, then we can move beyond what we feel to the deeper energy within us that keeps us from grappling honestly with our emotions. Then we will not only feel more deeply, but—more importantly—we will feel our feelings in a way that exposes our struggle with God.

Weariness is really about this core struggle to hope despite the circumstances and our limitations, and not so much about stress and being tired.