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Quote from Mike Yaconelli:  “Faith is not the way around pain, it is the way through pain.  Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner.  Faith doesn’t give you the winning point at the last second, it ties the game and sends you into over-time.  Faith doesn’t give you a solution, it forces you to find it.  Faith doesn’t teach you at the moment, it teaches you in retrospect.  Faith doesn’t provide a net to fall into when your fingers are about to give way as you hang suspended over the cliff, faith gives fingers the strength to hang on just a little longer.  In other words, faith doesn’t do anything when it’s doing something.”

Family Focus, Fourth Avenue church of Christ, Franklin, Tennessee, Perry Cotham, March 11, 1997