Yes. True strength does not come out of bravado.
Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered; I don’t let a man get close to me who hasn’t faced his wound. Think of the posers you know— are they the kind of man you would call at 2: 00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don’t want clichés; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I’ve been talking about.
Enemy-occupied territory— that is what this world is.
——C. S. LEWIS
We are but warriors for the working-day; Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched With rainy marching in the painful field . . . But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim.
——HENRY V
If we would endeavor, like men of courage, to stand in the battle, surely we would feel the favorable assistance of God from Heaven. For he who giveth us occasion to fight, to the end we may get the victory, is ready to succor those that fight manfully, and do trust in his grace.
——THOMAS À KEMPIS
Eldredge, John (2011-04-17). Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (p. 139). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.