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Sermon Illustrations: Testing, Problems, Difficulties

Touch a thistle timidly and it pricks you! Grasp it boldly and its spines crumble.

"I've just left 150,000 people who have no problems at all," said a man. "That's great. Take me to them," replied his friend. "They're in the cemetery."

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me; I cannot see the colours, He worketh steadily. Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I in foolish pride; Forget He sees the upper and it the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles come to fly; Will God unfold the canvass and explain the reason why; The dark threads were as needful in the Weaver's skilful hand; As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

Circumstances don't make a man, they reveal him. Like teabags, our real strength comes out when we get into hot water.1

A condom vending machine in Inverness, Scotland, had a sign affixed to it saying: "Approved to British Standards." Under this, someone had scribbled: "So was the S.S. Titanic."

A young man was studying ornithology [the study of birds] and had a tough professor. When he came for a test, the professor gave him 25 pictures of birds' feet and told him he had to identify which birds they came from. "I'm not going to do this. Nobody could pass this test," exclaimed the exasperated boy. "Then I'll fail you," said the professor. "So fail me," the student replied angrily. "Okay, what's your name?" The student took off his shoes and said, "You tell me."

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates

The fruit tree is never so close to the gardener as when he has the knife in his hands.

1 Petersen, J. Allan The Myth Of The Greener Grass