Where is the home across whose tender joy the shadow of grief has not fallen? 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 it 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. We may say that the design of God, in all the afflictions which he sends upon his people, is to make them better, 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 a 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 clings so to the holy, the golden wheat of goodness 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 save through suffering. Holiness cannot be reached without cost. Those who would gain the lofty heights must climb the cold, rough steeps that lead to them.
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