Joni Eareckson Tada Quotes

Someone once said that the challenge of living is to develop a long obedience in the same direction. When it's demanded, we can rise on occasion and be patient . . . as long as there are limits. But we balk when patience is required over a long haul. We don't much like endurance. It's painful to persevere through a marriage that's forever struggling. A church that never crest 100 members. Housekeeping routines that never vary from week-to-week. Even caring for an elderly parent or a handicapped child can feel like a long obedience in the same direction.

If only we could open our spiritual eyes to see the fields of grain we're planting, growing, and reaping along the way. That's what happens when we endure...

Right now you may be in the middle of a long stretch of the same old routine.... You don't hear any cheers or applause. The days run together―and so do the weeks. Your commitment to keep putting one foot in front of the other is starting to falter.

Take a moment and look at the fruit. Perseverance. Determination. Fortitude. Patience.

Your life is not a boring stretch of highway. It's a straight line to heaven. And just look at the fields ripening along the way. Look at the tenacity and endurance. Look at the grains of righteousness. You'll have quite a crop at harvest . . . so don't give up!

Nothing will convince and convict those around us like the peaceful and positive way you and I respond to our twentieth century hurts and distress. The unbelieving world-your neighbors, the guy at the gas station, the postman, the lady at the cleaners, your boss at work-is observing the way we undergo our trials.

Yes, I pray that my pain might be removed, that it might cease; but more so, I pray for the strength to bear it, the grace to benefit from it, and the devotion to offer it up to God as a sacrifice of praise.

God permits what He hates in order to accomplish something that He loves.

If you had never known physical pain in your life, how could you appreciate the nail scarred hands with which Jesus Christ will meet you?

Subdue your heart to match your circumstances.

None of us, in our culture of comfort, know how to prepare ourselves for dying, but that's what we should do every day. Every single day, we die a thousand deaths.

Take those road hazards- the potholes, ruts, detours, and all the rest- as evidence that you were on the right route. It's when you find yourself on that big, broad, easy road that you ought to worry.

I'd rather be in this wheelchair knowing God than on my feet without him.

My weakness, that is, my quadriplegia, is my greatest asset because it forces me into the arms of Christ every single morning when I get up.

No other religion, no other, promises new bodies, hearts, and minds. Only in the gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible hope.

The greatest good suffering can do for me is to increase my capacity for God.

Probably, I thought, my suffering and training is a lifelong process. It will end only when I go to be with Christ.

One problem I have with faith-healing is that it tends to be focused only on the physical aspect of healing. But Jesus always backed away when people came to him only to get their physical needs met. My goodness, he was ready to have you lop off your hand! His real interest was in healing the soul.

I was in every club and extra-curricular activity at high school, and I was in the National Honor Society.

Deny your weakness, and you will never realize God's strength in you.

When we say yes to the grace of God, we are learning how to die.

The more righteous God appeared, the more resentful I became.

Christianity isn't all that complicated ... it's Jesus.

Perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life.

When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating him and quoting him and speaking of him. But only in suffering will we know Jesus.

My wheelchair was the key to seeing all this happen - especially since God's power always shows up best in weakness. So here I sit ... glad that I have not been healed on the outside, but glad that I have been healed on the inside. Healed from my own self-centered wants and wishes.

The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.

God always seems bigger to those who need him most. And suffering is the tool he uses to help us need him more.

The weaker I am, the harder I must lean on God's grace; the harder I lean on him, the stronger I discover him to be, and the bolder my testimony to his grace.

We dare not think that God is absent or daydreaming. The do nothing God ... He's not tucked away in some far corner of the universe, uncaring, unfeeling, unthinking, uninvolved. Count on it, God intrudes in glorious and myriad ways.

Only God is capable of telling us what our rights and needs are. You have to surrender that right to Him.

My longings are best met when, in prayer, I simply let my heart beat in time with the Lord's.

If you truly believe in the value of life, you care about all of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.

The hallmark of a healthy society has always been measured by how it cares for the disadvantaged.

My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church.

Joni discovered the best way to put the halter on her horse without being animal resisting and fleeing was to turn her back until he nuzzled up to her. At that point, she could slip the halter on. Just so, she surmises, sometimes God waits for us to turn our backs on what we desire most and to trust Him.

How can we bless at one moment and curse at another?

This paralysis is my greatest mercy.7

We will stand amazed to see the topside of the tapestry and how God beautifully embroidered each circumstance into a pattern for our good and His glory.

When I look at Jesus' warm and intimate friendships, my heart fills with praise that Jesus was ... a man. A man of flesh-and-blood reality. His heart felt the sting of sympathy. His eyes glowed with tenderness. His arms embraced. His lips smiled. His hands touched. Jesus was male! Jesus invites us to relate to him as the Son of Man. And because he is fully man, we can relate to Jesus with affection and love.

Oh, my goodness, when you're a mother and you just give birth to a child with spina bifida and - or Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy, there's a bit of a shock you're going to have to go through, a bit of an adjustment curve.

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

AS a matter of fact, God isn't asking you to be thankful. He's asking you to give thanks. There's a big difference. One response involves emotions, the other your choices, your decisions about a situation, your intent, your 'step of faith.

Like all good citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities want to eradicate waste and fraud from government, but helping people with special needs meet their basic needs doesn't fit this description.

I have an interesting perspective on depending on others. I think it gives people a chance to serve. And I'm not so much big on independence, as I am on interdependence. I'm not talking about co-dependency, I'm talking about giving people the opportunity to practicing love with its sleeves rolled up.

The face that Moses had begged to see – was forbidden to see – was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20)

The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his brow…

"On your back with you!" One raises a mallet to sink the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on – he grants the warrior's continued existence. The man swings.

As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm – the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless – the nerves perform exquisitely. "Up you go!" They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.

But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being – the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father's eye turns brown with rot.

His Father! He must face his Father like this!

From heave

Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him.

If churches around the world would grasp the revolutionary truth that Christ's transforming power always comes through sacrifice and weakness, it would dramatically alter the landscape of the global church.

What a way to learn great theology! That's what comes to mind whenever I sing one of those old hymns. "And Can It Be" is like putting the doctrine of salvation to music. "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" is a melodic lesson in grace. No wonder good hymns make for strong faith!

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.

Most of the verses written about praise in God's Word were voiced by people who were faced with crushing heartaches, injustice, treachery, slander, and scores of other difficult situations.

Like art, like music, like so many other disciplines, prayer can only be appreciated when you actually spend time in it. Spending time with the Master will elevate your thinking. The more you pray, the more will be revealed. You will appreciate not only the greatness of prayer, but the greatness of God.

This is the only time in history when I get to fight for God. This is the only part of my eternal story when I am actually in the battle. Once I die, I'll be in celebration mode in a glorified body in a whole different set of circumstances. But this is my limited window of opportunity, and I'm going to fight the good fight for all I'm worth.

You better be very convinced, very sure, before you pull your plug or someone else's plug, that you know what's on the other side of the gravestone.

If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn't surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character ... Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy-utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous ... Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as many ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God, who delights in lavishing love on His children.

Maybe the truly handicapped people are the ones that don't need God as much.

He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.

Cancer is such a wake-up call to remind us how high the cosmic stakes really are and how short and brief and frail life really is.

Every time we go to sleep, it's a rehearsal of the day when our eyes will ultimately close and we wake up on the side of eternity.

Faith means being sure of what we hope for now. It means knowing something is real, this moment, all around you, even when you don't see it.

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.

Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal - 'I'm not letting go until I get what I want' - it's a problem.

I want to stay in the habit of 'glancing' at my problems and 'gazing' at my Lord.

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

When asked about her involvements, Joni most often refers to her work at JAF Ministries, including Wheels for the World - a program through which used wheelchairs are collected, refurbished, and hand-delivered, along with Bibles, to needy disabled people in developing nations. Chuck Colson has stated, "My friend Joni Eareckson Tada is one of God's choice servants of today." Philip Yancey has added, "Through her public example, Joni has done more to straighten out warped views of suffering than all the theologians put together. Her life is a triumph of healing - a healing of the spirit, the most difficult kind." You can read more about this remarkable woman in the twentieth-anniversary edition of her autobiography, titled Joni, published by Zondervan.

God points to the peaceful attitude of suffering people to teach others about Himself.

I wished God were like He used to be, a few notches lower. I wanted Him to be lofty enough to help me but not so uncontrollable. I longed for His warm presence, times when He seemed more ... safe.

Heartache forces us to embrace God out of desparate, urgent need. God is never closer than when your heart is aching.

There is nothing that moves a loving father's soul quite like his child's cry.

Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised.

In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn't get squeamish about it.

The problem of suffering is not about something but about someone.

Life becomes inspiring, not in spite of the problems and the hard hits, but because of them.

What an encouragement to realize that God has reserved you and me for a special task in His great work. In His hands we're not only useful, but priceless.

Every Christian who keeps looking up stretches his heart's capacity for Heaven.

Love is extravagant in the price it is willing to pay, the time it is willing to give, the hardships it is willing to endure, and the strength it is willing to spend. Love never thinks in terms of "how little," but always in terms of "how much." Love gives, love knows, and love lasts.

Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God's motives, but in understanding His character, in trusting in His promises, and in leaning on Him and resting in Him as the Sovereign who knows what He is doing and does all things well.

The Bible is replete with commands to persevere, especially in the face of injustice.

God deliberately chooses weak, suffering and unlikely candidates to get His work done, so that in the end, the glory goes to God and not to the person.

Amazing, isn't it, that our prayers ... can move the very heart of God who created the universe?

That truth set me free, along with other truths like leaning daily on God's grace and realizing that God's children are never victims. Everything that touches their lives, he permits. The irony is, you can't imagine a more victimized person than Jesus. Yet when he died, he didn't say, "I am finished" but "It is finished." He did not play the victim, and thus he emerged the victor. Forget the self-pity. True, your supervisor may be trying to push you out of your job. Your marriage may be a fiery trial. You might be living below the poverty level. But victory is ours in Christ. His grace is sufficient. Know this truth and it will set you free. This day, Jesus, I can feel sorry for myself or victorious in you. Show me how to choose the latter.

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

into art or music, how about that exhilarating moment when, during the 1982 Winter Olympics, the U.S. hockey team pulverized the Russians? Whether in front of the television, in the stands, or on the ice, we all became "one" in the euphoria of victory. My strong, he-man father once told me about a time he was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking Yellowstone Falls - with tears in his eyes, he described how he became one with the deafening roar of the water. If you have experienced any of this, it's an inkling of the joy that will overtake us when we take just one glance at the Lord of joy. We will lose ourselves in Him. We will become one with Him. We will be "in Christ," we will have "put on Christ" at the deepest, most profound and exhilarating level. The Lord's wedding gift to us will be the joy of sharing totally in His nature without us losing our identity; no, we shall receive our identity. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future. It's simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step.