When Problems Come

“But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.” Job 36:15

Is life without suffering a blessing or a curse? Now, before you are quick to answer that, give it some serious thought. A blessing is what causes you to come closer to God; a curse sends you away from Him. His nearness or absence is the great definer of whether life is worthwhile.

In Africa there is a very swift river that the natives must cross repeatedly. A missionary tried a number of times to wade across as they did, but always got swept off his feet. Then he observed how the natives did it. They first loaded themselves up with weights or burdens, and then they were able to wade leisurely across the sift river. A burden carried kept their feet on the solid bottom.

The cross of Calvary was Christ’s crowning experience. Without it, he would have been a good teacher, a good man or example, but not the Savior of the world from whose birth all time is counted.

If suffering can be a blessing, how??

1. First of all, it confines us. Few who have sat with a loved one in a hospital would have any doubts about that! Or the one who lays on the bed, day after day, knows the reality of confinement. In a broader sense, it can cause us to stop our mad running here and there, and begin to focus on what is really important in life. Some of the things we were scurrying after may look trifling or bothersome in light of more important matters. We must occasionally be stopped in our tracks for us to take stock of life, how we have spent it, and how we would continue to spend it if given a new opportunity. Have we been doing things that will count in eternity, or have we been more like butterflies, hopping from one pretty thing to another.
   
2. It refines us. The ministry of storm is a valuable one. The person whose life has not been tested and tried by the things of this world have little empathy or compassion in their souls. The best wood, the closest grains, the most beautiful patterns and colors appear in those trees who have been blown about by fierce storms. So it is with lives beset by sorrows, tests and trials. As gold must face the hottest of fires for the dross and impurities to be burned away, so must we. The unneeded clay must be cut away by the skilled potter to reveal the things desired underneath. God does not want us to be like vases of glass or porcelain. He does not want us to be hothouse plants, but storm-beaten oaks; not sand dunes, driven with every gust of wind, but granite rocks withstanding the fiercest of storms. He must test us in the room of suffering. Better the storm waters with Christ than smooth waters without Him!
   
3. It defines us. Did the suffering cause us to draw close to Christ for strength and comfort, or did bitterness and rage swell up within us? Were we able to continue to be a mighty witness for God whether good things came to us or whether none did? Did our faith in Christ remain firm even when our footing underneath did not? How much more honoring of the Lord are those who will love and serve him to matter what the circumstances of life may bring!

The testing room of a great steel mill is a most important place. Here steel is tested to know its breaking point. Some pieces were twisted until they broke, some stretched yet remained strong. The man in charge knew just what each could bear if placed in a great ship, a building or a bridge. he knew because the testing room revealed it. It is often so with God’s children.

Every one faces or will face some tremendous testing or suffering in this life. Many at the beginning of it, some at the end, and other continually. All is designed by the Master’s hand for a purpose. The suffering isn’t the important thing, how you respond to it is. God is more concerned about your character than your comfort. Is life without suffering a blessing or a curse? Follow the lives of the great heroes of the faith to find out. Better yet, follow the path of the Lord up to Calvary. We are given the promise that he will always be with us, no matter what may come. What more can we ask?