Those who know true joy in the midst of suffering are those who recognize that, in this life, our suffering is never as great or as serious as our sins. Humility: True Greatness (Chapter 11)
Do you wonder about the trials in your life? Well let me just let you know the purpose of them is to cut away everything in your life, so that Jesus does become your life, and it's worth it.
Sickness, and losses, and crosses, and anxieties, and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful, and spiritual minded. Holiness (Chapter 6)
they are heretics, and not men of the right faith, who draw some odd things out of the scriptures for their own purpose, not having any respect to the rest. But by that means, they pick out for themselves a certain few testimonies which they would have altogether believed, the whole scripture in the meantime questioning it, because indeed the fewer places must be understood according to the meaning of those that are more numerous.
There is that of God to be seen in such a day as cannot be seen in another. His power in holding up some, his wrath in leaving of others; his making of shrubs to stand, and his suffering of cedars to fall; his infatuating of the counsels of men, and his making of the devil to outwit himself; his giving of his presence to his people, and his leaving of his foes in the dark; his discovering [disclosing] the uprightness of the hearts of his sanctified ones, and laying open the hypocrisy of others, is a working of spiritual wonders in the day of his wrath, and of the whirlwind and storm.... We are apt to overshoot, in the days that are calm, and to think ourselves far higher, and more strong than we find we be, when the trying day is upon us.... We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there.
They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another... Psalms and hymans they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices.Ad uxorem, bk2 ch8
At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [the cross].Cross of Christ (John Stott) P21