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In the world there is spiritual as well as bodily pain. Spiritual pain is the result of sin and separation from God, while bodily pain comes from some physical sickness or injury. All living creatures suffer in proportion to the development of their organs of sense, but not to the same degree as man, whose feelings and higher intellectual powers add immensely to his capacity for suffering, because whenever he imagines he has pain his actual sufferings are increased to that extent.
Usually the teeth, claws, and beaks of birds and beasts of prey are such that it is scarcely possible for their victims to escape from them, so the prey is killed at once without excessive pain, and saved from the suffering that would follow were it to escape wounded. Then, again, the poison of snakes and of venomous insects gets into the blood, and causes such numbness that death ensues without pain. In Nature, except in a few extraordinary circumstances, death usually occurs without any excessive pain, because at the time of death the victims are only semi-conscious, either through the effect of the poison, or from the shock of the wound. In short, their state is really not as evil as we often imagine it to be, but pain and suffering that is the result of either physical or spiritual evil is indeed agonising.
Pain and suffering is often necessary for our life’s spiritual progress and growth, and it is not the Will of God that we should always escape from it. Many things seem bitter and bad to the taste, which really are very useful to us. We may even go so far as to say that every poison and unpalatably bitter thing acts as a remedy, or as a specific, in some disease or other. We call them poisons through ignorance of their real medicinal properties, but God has created everything for the completion of some special purpose, and for their purpose they are sufficient, but, as we are ignorant of their exact application, our use of them often results in injury. And God has not created anything which is in itself injurious or evil, or which can harm any of His creatures if rightly used. Likewise all pain and suffering is a means of growth and of deepening to spiritual lives (Romans 7:18). Poisonous and injurious effects in our lives are brought about by the perverted use of powers and abilities which God has given, but especially by disobedience.
Pain and suffering is not only a most useful means of awakening man to his spiritual state, but is profitable for those who are helping him in his trouble, because it gives them, too, the opportunity for exercising those distinctive qualities that are necessary for their own growth towards perfection. And the real victory is not that we should be saved from pain and suffering or death and evil, but that, by the grace of God, we may change pain into ease, the cross and death into life, and evil into good. For this reason alone are we thrust into this warfare and struggle, for “we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). The real value of ease cannot be appreciated without having known pain, nor of sweetness without having tasted bitterness, nor of good without having seen evil, nor even of life without having passed through death. Therefore it is God’s Will that before we enter, with Him, into His Kingdom to enjoy Him eternally we must have passed through all these, and have learned from our experience a lesson for eternity.
Before the pearl has been slowly built up the pearl oyster has to undergo great suffering. “Mother o’ pearl, or Nacre, tortured by the intrusion of some living thing, a boring parasite, a worm, or a small fish, or of a grain of sand, or other inorganic substance, and without means to free itself, the Mollusc perforce neutralises the irritant matter by converting it into an object of beauty.” Pearls are the product of pain and suffering; still when treated with neglect their lustre is destroyed. “Their charm, which is due to a peculiar surface play of light, might be destroyed by contamination with grease, ink, or similar matter.” Sometimes in ancient tombs pearls have been laid away with the corpse, but they too have decayed and mingled their dust with the dead. So, like the pain-born pearl, spiritual life, without pain and suffering, cannot become beautiful. And even when we have reached that state of beauty, there is still fear that we will fall from that high state, and lose our lustre, if, with humble and thankful hearts, we do not always cling in love to the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:12). Hence for us it is needful always to watch and to pray.
As diamonds and other precious stones pass through hundreds of thousands of years in heat and cold and pressure in Nature’s laboratory before they reach their perfection of beauty, so must we pass through pain and suffering before we can be perfected. And though chemists can make diamonds and other precious stones artificially, yet when we apply careful tests to them we see their defects. So we cannot reach in a single day to such perfection that we will have no defects in us, but by continually living in nearness to, and in the presence of our Heavenly Father, we will become perfect even as He is perfect.
Rain and wind storms may seem to be destructive, yet they are really blessings in disguise, for they clear away all kinds of deadly germs of plagues and diseases and bring health to us. In the same way, the wind of the Holy Spirit (John 3:8), and the shock of the storm of pain and suffering, bring spiritual health and blessing to us.
Again, the heat of the sun draws up water vapour to form clouds, which come back to us as rain, so, too, the Sun of Righteousness brings life to us by causing those streams of living water to flow into our spiritual lives.
A great many people do not know that the heart’s craving, in this world and the next, can be met in God alone. Some of them—philosophers as well as the immoral and the criminal—when they have failed to find any kind of satisfaction in the world, have become hopeless and have tried to end it all by taking their own lives. At the opposite extreme to this, we see true Christian believers. They suffer much in this world because the higher they grow in their spiritual experience the greater are the difficulties that arise. The worldly-minded man altogether fails to understand this, so instead of giving them help he often opposes and persecutes them. But still they are not reduced to the suicide of despair, for in the very act of denying their worldly ambitions they find peace in communion with God. But though all man’s spiritual cravings are satisfied in God, he still longs for the friendship and sympathy of his fellow-men, and where this instinct for social fellowship is not satisfied, the Christ, Who is both God and Man, meets the cravings of his social as well as of his spiritual nature. For His understanding of the difficulties and sufferings of man springs, not from His divine nature only, but from His personal experience when He Himself suffered as a man, which enables Him now to give perfect help and sympathy to all troubled sons of men.
In this world spiritually-minded men suffer (2 Timothy 3:12) because they are misunderstood by others who are unable to appreciate the truth, and have their natures warped, and their spiritual discernment deadened by the sin in them. When men of this class meet a good man, they find that his nature is incompatible with their natures, and instinctively feel impelled to take up an antagonistic attitude to him. But that man, whose feelings and conscience are alive to God, in coming in contact with a like-minded man, recognises the God-life that is in him and is drawn towards him.
The true Christian’s life is like sandal-wood, which imparts its fragrance to the axe which cuts it without doing it any harm. God’s warning to Henry Suso, “Thou shalt suffer publicly the loss of thy good name, and where thou shalt look for love and faithfulness there shalt thou find treachery and suffering”, has been repeated in the experience of multitudes of Christians. In this world in which all godly prophets and apostles, and even the Lord Himself, have had to suffer, if one wishes to escape suffering he will have to deny the truth, and turn away his face from God, and make friends with the world. On the other hand, the honour of sharing in “the fellowship of His sufferings” with the Lord Himself (Philippians 3:10) is a great privilege. Finally, when the appointed time comes, he who truly shares in the sufferings of His Lord will enter into the eternal glory, and reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12).
Before we can reach our destined goal we shall have to pass through pain, suffering, and temptation. All these states are necessary for the growth of our spiritual lives and for our future welfare, hence it is God’s Will that we should pass through them. If this had not been God’s plan for us, He would not have required it of us. But if He does, then who are we to oppose Him? There is nothing more to be said. We must gladly accept whatever falls to our lot, and must not give place in our hearts to any kind of doubt which, by raising a barrier between us and God, destroys our capacity for enjoying His presence and fellowship.
As long as we are in the world we shall have to bear pain and suffering. The bee not only collects honey: it has a sting as well for some special purpose of its own. The thorns on the beautiful and fragrant rose are not put there without a purpose. Paul’s thorn in the flesh, too, was given for the fulfilment of some great and wise plan. It is very necessary, also, that we should pass through these testing times for the fulfilling of that eternal purpose for which we have been created.