Adversity and Illness - Are These Blessings?

Adversity and illness can be the best teacher one can ask for, and I have found this to be true.  Indeed, what this teacher tells me is not always pleasant.  He faces me up with uncomfortable truths that strike the conscience with a force that is devastating. 

One of those truths concerns how Christians live while everything is going fine.  Their living is almost by rote.  They worship by rote; they pray mechanically; they serve God because it is their duty to serve God; they attend church because it is what is expected of them as Christians.  They read the Bible because that’s what Christians do; they pray for the same reason.  They attended evangelical meetings because it is their duty to be there.

But if and when they sit down and ponder what it was they were doing all these years, they may be in for a great surprise.  To help you grasp this, let me ask you, as Margaret and I have asked ourselves, was your heart in what you were doing?  How deep and real was your love for Christ?  Was it just a mere profession?  Did you really look forward to meeting with Christ in the Word and in prayer, or were these things done mechanically?  

Was your religion a religion that was done without thinking?  Was going to worship the Lord of all the earth something you did unconsciously?  Was it just your habit to do so?

These are very uncomfortable questions to address.  For when you are faced with a potentially life-threatening situation, such religion is utterly useless to anyone. And the really frightening thing is that so many church people are depending upon their mere church involvement to get them to heaven.  So long as they believe the right things, go to the right church, be seen with the right people, use the right language, little else matters.  But this is all vanity. 

When I think as a minister just how little heart there was in my service, I cringe.  When I consider how many things were done just because someone else expected me to do them, I tremble.  When I recall how many empty prayers I prayed, I feel ashamed.  When I recall how often I read the Scriptures without even thinking about what the Lord was saying to me, I fear.  I fear that so much was done because it was the practice to do them.  I simply followed tradition because it was tradition not because it was biblical. 

Looking back, I am glad that circumstances changed and God brought me to where I and Margaret are at today, because in the past we missed so much.  We were not really touched by other people’s hurt, their problems, their situations.  Oh, the bane of ministerial professionalism.  What a blight on the Church of Jesus Christ!  I am sure the gracious Lord had to teach me these lessons that I could not or would not learn elsewhere.  There is no place like the furnace to burn away the dross from a Christian profession. 

The great English Puritan, Richard Baxter (1615-1691) wrote the words of this mighty hymn (the last five verses):

If life be long, oh, make me glad
The longer to obey;
If short, no labourer is sad
To end his toilsome day.

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
And he that to God's kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet,
What will Thy glory be?

Then I shall end my sad complaints
And weary, sinful days,
And join with the triumphant saints
Who sing my Saviour’s praise.

My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.

Do these words warm and thrill your hearts?  See the humility of Baxter as he submits to God’s sure providence.  Let us imitate him in these things, and we, too, will be greatly encouraged to walk the pilgrim path with joyfulness and hope.