One of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. I feel it as though it hung in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. Our faith breaks easily. Our happiness breaks easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition…
When you are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when you see a good bit of this ethos in yourself, you need to spend time with people–whether dead of alive–whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, “Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” ( Hebrews 6:12 ).
John Piper on Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering, a biographical sketch on Charles Simeon
