By J.R. Miller
"Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness." Hebrews 12:10
Affliction is not accidental. It does not break wildly and lawlessly into our life. No matter what its immediate cause or source--it is under God's direction. There is no 'chance' in the universe. This is our Father's world, and all things and all events are under His control. We need not fret ourselves over scientific laws or the inferences from them, for God is greater than His own creation and is never hindered in His purposes of love by the outworking of the laws He has established, which in any case are but His ways of working. Jesus spoke of the terrible cruelty and wrong which culminated in His death on a cross as "the cup which My Father has given Me."
It is comforting to think of trouble, in whatever form it may come to us--as a heavenly messenger, bringing us some blessing from God. In its earthly aspect it may seem hurtful, even destructive; but in its spiritual outworking, it yields blessing.
Take the matter of chastening. It is always painful--but we know that the object of our Father is our good, the correction in us of things that are wrong, and the bringing out in us of qualities of divine beauty, which otherwise would not be developed. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it very plainly in a remarkable passage. He reminds us that we are God's sons, and exhorts us not to regard lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor to faint when we are reproved by Him: "The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son . . . God deals with you as with sons."
Referring to our acceptance of the chastening of earthly parents, he says: "We have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness." The wisest and most loving earthy father may not always chasten either wisely or lovingly--but whatever chastening our heavenly Father may minister to us, we know that He has in mind only our good, our profit. Then follow these words which interpret for us the purpose of all the trials that God sends into our life: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."
The teaching is clear and positive. Painful in the human experience as it must always be, we know that in its outcome, chastening always works good. We do not know how much we owe to suffering. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past, are the fruit of sorrow or pain. Others sowed in tears--and we gather the harvest in joy. We should never forget that redemption, the world's greatest blessing--is the fruit of the world's greatest sorrow. In our own personal life, it is true that in all chastening our Father's design is our profit, and that suffering rightly endured, yields the fruit of righteousness.
"He prunes every branch that produces fruit--so that it will produce more fruit." John 15:2. Take the process of pruning--the figure which our Lord Himself uses. The gardener prunes the branches--but not without wise purpose. The Master's words, referring to this process in spiritual husbandry, are rich in their comfort for those on whom the knife is doing its painful work.
For one thing, we are told that the Father is the gardener. We know that our Father loves us and would never do anything unloving or hurtful. We know that He is infinitely wise, that He looks far on in our life, planning the largest and the best good for us, not for today only--but for all the future, and that what He does is certainly the best that could be devised. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife cuts deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, "My Father is the gardener."
Another inspiring thought in all such experience, is that it is the fruitful branch which the Father prunes. Sometimes godly people say when they are led through great trials, "Surely God does not love me, or He would not so sorely afflict me." But it takes away all the distressing thoughts about our trouble, to read the Master's words, "He prunes every branch that produces fruit." It is not punishment to which we are subjected--but pruning, and it is because we are fruitful that we are pruned.
Still another comfort here is revealed in the object of the pruning--"He prunes every branch that produces fruit--so that it will produce more fruit." The one object of all God's pruning, is fruitfulness. The figure of pruning helps us to understand this. When one who knows nothing of such processes sees a man cutting away branch after branch of a tree or vine, it would seem to him that the work is destructive. But those who understand the object of the pruning--know that what the gardener is doing, will add to the vine's value and to its ultimate fruitfulness.
Dr. Marvin R. Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, "When my new gardener came he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years--but this is the result." There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process as we apply it to Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine. The gardener appears to be cutting it all away. But he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.
There is another Scripture teaching which many Christians seem to forget in time of trial. It is this--that every trouble which comes into the life of a believer, enfolds in its dark form, some gift from God. There are blessings which it would seem can be given only in pain and earthly loss, and lessons which can be learned only in suffering. There are heavenly songs we can never learn to sing while we are enjoying earth's ease. We can be trained for gentle ministry only in the school of loss and trial. In our short-sightedness we dread the hard things of life and would thrust away the bitter cups. If only we knew it, these unwelcome experiences bring to us rich gifts and benefits. There are blessings we never can have, unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no other way to reach them--but through suffering.
There is a quite common misconception regarding answers to prayer, a misconception which would be corrected if we understood better the meaning of trouble as it comes into our life. In our time of suffering or sorrow, we cry to God for relief, asking Him to take away that which is so hard for us to endure. We do not remember that this very trial is a messenger of good from God to us. When we ask our Father to free us from the painful experience, we do not realize that we are really asking Him to recall an angel of mercy who has come with rich gifts in his hands for us.
What should our prayer be in such a case? There is no harm in our asking even earnestly and importunately that the suffering may pass--but we should always ask reverently, leaving it to God to decide what is best. Then the prayer should be, that if the trouble is not taken away we may be strengthened to endure it--and may not fail to receive its blessing. This is the promise, indeed, which is made. We are not told that God will either remove our burden or carry it for us. If there is a blessing in it for us, it would not be a kindness to lift it off. The assurance is, however, that He will sustain us as we bear our load.
This may disappoint some who turn to God with their trouble, thinking only of relief from it. But when we remember that God has a design in the trouble, a loving purpose, we know we cannot afford to lose it. To be freed from it would be to miss the good which is in it for us. We grow best under weights. So in love and wisdom God leaves the load on our shoulder that we may still carry it and get through it the gift which He sends us in it. He then gives us strength to bear it--strengthens us under its weight.
We have the same teaching in the word "comfort" itself, whose meaning is ofttimes greatly misunderstood. Many people looking for comfort in sorrow, expect that the bitter cup will be taken away or at least that its bitterness will be alleviated. But the word comfort is from a root which means to strengthen. Hence it contains no promise that in any way the burden will be made lighter, or the grief less poignant. God comforts us--by giving us strength to endure our trial. For example, when we turn to Him in bereavement, He does not restore our beloved, nor make the loss appear less--which could be done only by making us love less, since love and grief grow on the same stalk--but gives us new revealing of His own love to fill the emptiness, and to put into our heart new visions of the life into which our friend has gone, to help us to rejoice in his exaltation to a state of eternal blessedness.
We have an illustration of the divine comforting in the way our Lord Himself was helped in His great sorrow. As He entered the bitter experience, He prayed that the cup of suffering might pass, yet praying submissively. The prayer was not answered in the form in which it was made. Instead of relieving Him of His suffering, strength was ministered to Him, and as we listen we find the intensity of His supplication subsiding into sweet acquiescence. Thus He was comforted, and passed through all the bitter trial of the cross without one other cry for relief, His heart filled with perfect peace. It is thus that usually God's comfort comes to His people--not in the lifting off of their weight of sorrow or pain--but in strengthening them for victorious endurance.
It is well that all who are called to suffer should get a clear and definite conception of the meaning of trouble, that they may know how to meet it. Since it comes always bearing some gift of love, some blessing from God--we should receive it as God's messenger, with reverence, with a welcome in our heart, though it brings pain or grief, and should be ready to take from it whatever benefit it brings. The reason many people find so little comfort in their troubles, is because they do not accept them as sent from God, nor expect to receive blessing from them. They think only of getting through them in the best way they can, and then of getting over them at length, as nature's slow processes brings healing.
But there is a better way. God's comfort can keep the heart sweet and unhurt in the midst of the sorest trials, and bring the life through the darkest hours, shining in transfigured beauty. A genial author writes: "Strangely do some people talk of getting over a great sorrow--overleaping it, passing it by, thrusting it into oblivion. Not so. No one ever does that, at least no nature which can be touched by the feeling of grief at all. The only was is to pass through the ocean of affliction solemnly, slowly, with humility and faith, as the Israelites passed through the sea. Then its very waves of misery will divide and become to us a wall on the right side and on the left, until the gulf narrows and narrows before our eyes, and we land safe on the opposite shore."
