The Ministry of Comfort: Chapter 5 - Trouble as a Trust
By J.R. Miller
One wrote to a friend who for some time had been a sufferer, "God must love you very dearly, to trust so much pain and sorrow to your care." The thought of suffering as something entrusted to us by God, is a very suggestive one. We may not be accustomed to think of it in this way. Yet there is no doubt that every trouble which comes to us is really a trust, something committed to us to be accepted by us, used as a gift of God, and then accounted for.
It is thus, indeed, that all life comes to us. Nothing is our own to use for ourselves only. We receive our gifts and talents, not to be spent on ourselves or as we please--but to be increased by proper use, held for the honor of the Master, employed for the benefit of the world, and then returned to our Lord when He calls for the accounting.
Money is to be regarded likewise as a trust--not our own--but our Master's, to be used for Him in doing good to others. The same is true of all blessings that we receive. We dare not use any of them, even the smallest, for our own pleasure or comfort alone; if we do--they cease to be blessings to us. Even divine mercy, the greatest of all God's gifts, which is granted so freely to every penitent, can become ours only on condition that we shall dispense it to others. When we ask to be forgiven, we must pledge our Father that we will be forgiving. The forgiveness we receive is not for ourselves only--but is a trust to be used, to be given out again to others.
This is the law of all life. Everything which is put into our hands, from the tiniest flower which blooms in our window--to the infinite gift of eternal life--all are entrusted to us that we may share their beauty and benefit with those about us. They are bestowed upon us, not as a treasure to be selfishly used--but as blessings to be dispensed to others. To try to keep any blessing altogether for ourselves,is to lose it; we can make its blessing really our own--only by holding it and using it for the good of others.
Suffering in every form comes under the same principle. It is a trust from God. It may have, and doubtless has, its peculiar meaning for us. But we must listen for its message. It brings in its dark folds some gift of God expressly for us--but not for us to hold selfishly or to absorb in our own life. Whatever is spoken to us in the darkness of sorrow, we are to speak out in the light. What we hear in the ear as we listen in the hour of grief or pain--we are to proclaim upon the housetops. What is revealed to us in the darkened room, when the curtains are drawn--we must go and tell others in their hours of need and trial. In all trouble--we are stewards of the mysteries of God.
Pain is wonderful revealer. It teaches us many things we never could have known, if we had not been called to endure it. It opens windows through which we see, as we never saw before--the beautiful things of God's love. But the revealing is not to be hidden in our own heart. If we try thus to keep them, we shall miss their blessing; only by declaring them to others, can we make them truly our own and get their treasure for ourselves. Only what we give away, can we really hold forever.
No doubt God's children are ofttimes called to suffer in order that they may honor God in some way. This is illustrated in the case of Job. Satan sneeringly asks, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have not you made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has--and he will renounce you to your face."
It was necessary that this challenge of Satan's should be met and disproved, and hence the great trials through which Job was called to pass. His sufferings were not for the cleansing of his own nature, or the correction of faults in his character--but in order that he might show by his unshaken faith that his serving of God was not for earthly reward--but from true loyalty of soul.
Ofttimes the primary reason why godly men are called to suffer, is for the sake of witness they may give to the sincerity of their love for Christ and the reality of divine grace in them. The world sneers at religious profession. It refuses to believe that it is genuine. It defiantly asserts that what is called Christian principle is only selfishness, and that it would not stand severe testing. Then, godly men are called to endure loss, suffering or sorrow, not because there is any particular evil in themselves which needs to be eradicated--but because the Master needs their witness to answer the sneers of the world.
This suggests how important it is that all who claim to be Christ's followers shall guard most carefully the manner of their witnessing when they are passing though any trial. They do not know how much depends upon the victoriousness of their faith and joy in the hour of pain. Suppose that Job had failed, that he had not retained his integrity in the time of his sore trial; how Satan would have triumphed! But may it not be that in some sickness or loss or sorrow of ours, a like importance attaches to our faithfulness and submission, to our victoriousness, and that our failure would bring grief to the heart of Christ and cause the adversary to reproach God's name?
