Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

H. G. Wells, the famous writer, once described God as “an ever absent help in time of trouble.” After studying history for 50 years he came to the conclusion that God does nothing, absolutely nothing in the affairs of men. Such ideas are not new. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries a group of European philosophers called Deists proposed a philosophy calle...

Phillips Brooks once said, “When all that can be said has been said about suffering, there remains a dark mystery that cannot be fathomed.” Anyone who has tried to understand the purpose of suffering knows that to be true. It will be a mystery as long as we live on this earth. In the face of unexplainable suffering, here are a few suggestions to help you:...

Few people have the ability to see latent potential in others. Most of us look people over, size them up, and then leave them as they are. Many great people have been overlooked in this way. If we had been in England many years ago, we might even have sized up young Winston Churchill and written him off as a failure. He was a redheaded, troublesome boy with a speech i...

Scottish evangelist Henry Drummond once said, “Make Christ your constant companion … Ten minutes spent in his society every day, two minutes if it be face to face and heart to heart, will make the whole day different.” This is a great truth, but I think I would alter it a bit. It would be more correct to say, “It will make YOU different.&rdquo...

There is a lot of rubbish being peddled in the name of Christianity today. Radio and television preachers keep telling us if we just had enough faith, if we just believed God enough, we could be healed of all of our diseases. We would never have to be sick another day of our lives. But don’t you believe it! God never promises his people immunity from sickness,...

Joe Louis complained to his manager, Mike Jacobs, when he lost the world’s heavyweight boxing title: “You can’t do it when you don’t got it.” It’s as true in living the Christian life as it is in boxing—you’ve got to have power to be successful. God never intended you to live the Christian life in your own strength. I m...

I once talked with a man who was convinced that Christianity was a failure. His conclusion was based on the fact that while our cities are full of churches and preachers, our world is getting worse and worse. If you think about this criticism, you must agree that there is much religion in America that has little effect on the daily lives of people. While the number o...

Former Australian Prime Minister John Anderson said, “Doubt is a good place to start, but an awful place to stop.” Doubt can be the threshold to new truth or it can be the pitfall to despair. To our skeptical, doubting age God issues a challenge in Malachi 3: “Prove me...” We can prove that God is. We can’t do this by scientific means fo...

The most important thing about suffering is not why it happens, but how we respond to it. Attitudes, not answers, are the keys to triumphant living. To know why suffering comes does not ease the pain or heal the hurt. But if we respond to it correctly, it can make us better regardless of its cause. How we respond to suffering is entirely up to us. We do not get to ch...