p. 135 | Uses of Affliction by Chas. B. Reynolds

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 26, 1877

Uses of Affliction

By Chas. B. Reynolds

When under trial, sorrow, or affliction, how very precious is the sympathy of loving hearts! how soothing the assurance that those we love, realize the depth of our grief, comprehend the sorrow that rends our hearts, and the bitterness of the cup we have to drink, and entertain for us compassion, fellow-feeling, and pity. Genuine sympathy is to the human heart like the warm spring rain to the earth, softening, melting, and quickening all that is good and beautiful. Afflictions do sometimes come upon us as the penalty of wrong doing; but it is not always so. “Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you nay.” Our blessed Master was himself “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

We should seek to learn God’s purpose in our trials, sorrows, and afflictions. Instead of always being signs of wrath, they are more often proofs of love, intended to reform and educate, to prove us, show us ourselves, develop our faith, incite in us a spirit of sacrifice and a desire to attain to a higher, purer, and holier life. Bereavement, trial, and sorrow, come suddenly upon us. We start back appalled. Why is this great affliction permitted to come to us? Oh! we cannot see what is before us, as does our loving heavenly Father. He sees our peril, how all unconsciously we are nearing the treacherous quicksand that will engulf us. He in mercy sends the dark shadow of sorrow across our path, that we may pause, examine where we are, realize our danger and the necessity of changing our course, and seek his sustaining hand to help and guide us. In prosperity and joy we are most apt to forget, to wander from, the Lord. Sorrow and affliction drive us to him; for then we realize he is indeed our only hope and refuge.

But beyond and above all this, God has a design of mercy to others in every afflictive stroke that falls upon us. We need experience in trial, affliction, and bereavement; for it is actual experience which alone can fit us to be true, sympathetic messengers to the sorrowing. We need ourselves to taste the cup that we may know the bitterness which makes our friend shudder. How can we unlock the heart closed by misery and despair, without the sacred key which personal suffering alone can give. Does relentless death snatch dear loved ones from our embrace, numbing our hearts with anguish? Oh! it is pitiful, very pitiful, so hard to bear. But shall we not thenceforth enter the chamber of sickness with more gentle tread, with more tender pity administer the cup of consolation, with more of willingness try to bind up the poor, bleeding, mourning heart, with more real sympathy mingle our tears with those of the bereaved ones, beside the coffin and the grave? Does the cruel grip of poverty pinch us? Will it not give us needed, actual knowledge of the sufferings, privations, and temptations of the poor, learn us to be more forbearing, and spur us on to more active benevolence?

Is our way dark, shadowed in gloom? Do we grope for a time in a maze of doubt, perplexity, and error? This is indeed to be deplored. But will it not compel us to seek the promised heavenly help and wisdom, cause us to reach up, that we may find the loving, outstretched hand which alone can help us, hold us, guide us? And shall we not in remembrance of our own weakness and wayward wandering be more patient with those who are in error, and redouble our endeavors lovingly to lead them to the light of truth? And oh! most cruel, hardest of all to bear with patience, do those we have befriended, loved, regarded as our dearest friends, turn and rend us? Do we meet cruel suspicion, jealousy, and injustice from those who most owe us love and gratitude? Will it not draw us nearer to that Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, to Him who has promised he will never leave us nor forsake us? As we bemoan the cruel injustice and ingratitude toward us, will it not enforce upon our attention our own unworthiness, cause us to humble ourselves before God, and redouble our zeal and diligence in seeking to do his holy will? Sorrow, trial, and affliction come upon us, perhaps, even when we are making the most earnest efforts to do every duty in his fear. Why, oh! why is this? God in his word gives us the answer, tells us just why; and the reason cannot fail to bring light and hope and peace to every sorrowing, chafed, or restive believer in his love. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 2 Cor. 1: 3, 4. Look up, then, sorrowing hearts. Look unto Jesus, and be lightened. “I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” Ps. 34: 4–7.

God permits trouble, then he comforts, so that we may be drawn out of self, be made to feel for, become able and willing to impart hope and comfort to sorrowing hearts around us. Blessed teaching! Who would not be willing to suffer for the sweet power which only thus can be communicated to us? Sympathy, oh! how precious! Shall we not rejoice in hope, and be patient in tribulation, since God permits us thus to attain to walking in the footsteps of Jesus, to be filled with his gentle, tender, loving spirit, to learn obedience by suffering, and thus be fitted to fulfill the mission of compassion, to bear each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, to gain the plaudit, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

CHAS. B. REYNOLDS.