By J.R. Miller
Sooner or later, affliction and sorrow come to every Christian. Where is the life, unless it be among the very young, which has experienced no trial? We ought, therefore, to have true views about pain, about the divine reasons for sending it, and about the mission on which it comes. We ought to know, also, how to endure suffering so as to get from it the blessing which its hot hand brings to us.
While they do not solve all the mystery of human suffering, the Scriptures show, at least, that suffering is no accident in God's world--but is one of His messengers; and that it comes not as an enemy--but as a friend on an errand of blessing. The design of God, in all the afflictions which He sends upon His people--is to make them more holy, to advance their purification of character.
It is very clearly taught in the Word of God, that suffering is necessary in preparing sinful souls in this world, for heavenly glory. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." There is no easy way to glory. There is so much evil in us, even after we are born again, that nothing less than the discipline of pain, can cleanse our nature.
Tribulation is God's threshing, not to harm us or to destroy us--but to separate what is heavenly and spiritual in us--from what is earthly and fleshly. Nothing less than blows of pain will do this. The evil so clings to the holy; the golden wheat of godliness is so wrapped up in the strong chaff of the old life--that only the heavy flail of suffering can produce the separation. Perfection of character never can be attained, but through suffering. Holiness cannot be reached without cost. Those who would gain the lofty heights--must climb the cold, rough steeps which lead to them.
It is God's design, in all the pain which He sends--to make us more Christlike. His puts us in the fire of purification, until His own image shines reflected in the gold. His prunings mean greater fruitfulness. In whatever form the suffering comes--the purpose of the pain is merciful. In all our life in this world, God is saving us; and suffering is one of the chief agents which he employs. As Jesus said in one of his Beatitudes, "Blessed are they that mourn--for they shall be comforted." The blessing is not in the mourning--but in the comfort; that is, in the strengthening of the heart to endure the pain victoriously, and get help and better life out of it.
Said Paul: "We also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope." Romans 5:3-4. Suffering works out in us, qualities of Christian character which cannot be developed in any other way. "All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous--but grievous: yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness." The present grievousness of chastening is forgotten in its "afterward" of ripe fruitage, as winters cold and storm are forgotten in the summer's loveliness and harvest.
But there is a link in the chain, which we must not overlook. Not all afflictions make people better. Tribulation does not always work patience. Chastening does not always, even afterward, yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. We all have seen people suffering--who became only more impatient, irritable, ill-tempered, and selfish--as they suffered. Many a life in the furnace of affliction loses all the beauty it ever had. It is not by any means universally true, that we are made more holy and Christlike, by pain. There are dangerous shoals skirting the deeps of affliction, and many frail barques are wrecked in the darkness. In no experience of life do most people need wise friendship and firm, loving guidance more than in their times of trouble.
This subject is of such vital importance that we should give it our most earnest thought, not dismissing it from our minds until we have learned how trial must be endured so as to get blessing from it. For one thing, we must make sure of our personal relation to Christ. Two bare trees stood side by side one early spring. The sun poured down its warm beams and soon one of them was crowned with bursting buds, and later with rich foliage; but the other was still bare. One tree had life, and the other was dead. Where there was life, the hot sun called out beauty; where life was wanting, the effect of the heat was to make the tree appear even more completely dead. Affliction comes to two lives side by side; one life becomes more Christ-like, while the other withers in the heat. In the one, there is spiritual life; in the other, there is no life. There must be personal faith in Christ--or pain will not leave blessing.
Then again, the affliction must be received as God's messenger. We imagine that all angels wear radiant dress, and come to men with smiling face and gentle voice. Thus artists paint them. But truly they come ofttimes in very somber garb, and it is only when we receive them in faith, that they disclose to us their merciful aspect and mission.
We should therefore receive afflictions reverently, as sent from God. Even in our tears we should accept its message as divine. We may be assured that there is always some blessing for us, in pain's hot hand. There is some golden fruit, wrapped up in the rough husk. God designs to burn off some sins from us, in every fire through which he calls us to pass. Not to be able to accept from our Father's hand, the seed of pain, is to miss the fruits of blessing which can grow from no other sowing. We should give sorrow, when it comes, just as patient, loving welcome as we give joy; for it is from the same hand, and has the same errand to us. It is when we receive pain in this spirit that it blesses us. No one who murmurs under God's chastening hand, is ever made better by it.
Then, to get the benefit of the ministry of suffering, we must find true comfort. Many people suppose that if they can dry their tears, and resume again their old familiar course of life, they have been comforted. They think only of getting through the trial, and not of getting anything of help or blessing out of it. The true aim of suffering is to get from it--more purity of soul, and greater revelations of God's face, more of the love of Christ in the heart, and fresh strength for obedience and all duty. An old Psalm writer said: "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept your word." That is true comfort--holier, better living.
Out of every experience of pain, we ought to get something good. When we have passed through a season of suffering, and stand beyond it, there ought to be a new light in our eye, a new gentleness in our touch, a new sweetness in our voice, and a new hope in our heart. We ought not to permit our grief to flow long in bitter tears--but should turn it quickly into channels of earnest devotion and active usefulness. True comfort puts deep joy into the heart, and anoints the sufferer with a new baptism of grace and power.
One Christian woman wrote to another woman in deep grief: "The shadow of death will not always rest on your home; you will emerge from its obscurity into such light as they who have not sorrowed cannot know." This was true even of the earthly experience after sanctified sorrow; but it is true in a far deeper sense of the heavenly "afterward" of pain accepted as God's messenger. Not only will the sorrow of death be forgotten in the joy of heaven--but the joy of heaven will be far deeper and richer because of earth's pain and sorrow.
