"The Lord often allows his people to suffer as a means of promoting an awareness of his absolute sufficiency. Sometimes our suffering is related to unbiblical patterns of living."

"I believe that God has ordained the local church to be his primary instrument to tend to his people's aches and pains….In writing this book I have tried to be of practical help to Christians who want to be more effective in ministering to their suffering brothers and sisters."

"Many of the people we deal with in counseling are hiding behind all sorts of defensive overlays designed to protect a fragile sense of self-acceptance or to prevent further rejection or failure from reaching an already crippled self-identity. Counseling involves a stripping away of the layers, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, to reach the real person underneath."

"My thesis is that problems develop when the basic needs for significance and security are threatened. People pursue irresponsible ways of living as a means of defending against feelings of insignificance and insecurity. In most cases these folks have arrived at a wrong idea as to what constitutes significance and security."

"Counseling is relationship. Relationship interactions vary depending on the temperaments, problems, personalities of the people involved. With some you adopt a professional air, with others a relaxed, friendly mood. With some you directly teach, with others you ramblingly explore. With some you assign specific behavioral homework assignments, with others you subtly encourage broad affective or attitudinal changes."