ONE so often finds, even among God’s own children, the belief that their griefs and trials are sent as punishment for some sin, but a little thought will show how unjust this idea is.
When Christ gave sight to the blind man, he was asked, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born, blind?” and back came the lovely, reassuring answer,” “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:33Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. (John 9:3).)
It is true that sin brings its own retribution, always, but that is a consequence, not a punishment—we bring it on ourselves, and it was to save us from the wages of our own wrongdoing that the Saviour suffered and died: but discipline is not punishment, it is pruning.
When the gardener takes a knife and cuts away part of a tree, he is not punishing the tree, but cultivating it. He does not take this trouble Over a useless tree; it is the ones which he hopes to see bearing good fruit that must feel the: knife. “Every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth fruit.” (John 15:22Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. (John 15:2).)
“It is only great souls whom God can trust with suffering,” someone told me years ago; and when we remember the Captain of our salvation who was made “perfect through suffering,” cannot we look beyond the seemingly incomprehensible trial to the love that allowed it, to work out His purpose in us?
“This bitter cup, I drank it first,
To thee it is no draft accursed,
The Hand that gives it thee is pierced―
‘Tis I, be not afraid.”
Trial and suffering are allowed by Him to teach us lessons we could not otherwise learn—and His healing touch always follows the pruning that is needed to bring forth in us the fruit He longs to see. One look back across the years will reveal the golden thread of His loving guidance running through the pattern of our lives, and it shines most brightly where the web is darkest.
God has given us, in, His Word, a most perfect example of such dealings in the case of Job—a man so righteous that even God was able to say of him “Who is like unto my servant Job?” Yet, in order to prove the falseness of Satan’s suggestion that affliction would change this man’s faith in His goodness, God allowed him to be afflicted in every possible way, until he was left poor, alone and diseased—yet “in all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly”; instead, he uttered those lovely words, “Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil? The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away—blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 2:10; 1:2110But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. (Job 2:10)
21And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:21).)
Job never knew what was the reason for his terrible trials—and we do not know what lies behind the seemingly incomprehensible happenings in our own lives—but if, like Job, we keep through all an unshaken trust in the unfailing wisdom and love of the One who permits all for His own high purposes for us, we shall look back at last, from the heights of faith, and see in light the road along which we had to walk in the dark, and alone—but with our hand in the pierced Hand of the One who knows all, and understands.