Psalms 119:71

THE DISCIPLINE OF PAIN

‘It is good for me that I have been in trouble: that I may learn Thy statutes.’

Psalms 119:71 (Prayer Book Version)

It is scarcely surprising if the mystery of pain has been a problem which beyond almost any other has tasked the brain and wearied the heart of many of the world’s greatest thinkers.

I. Pain the result of sin.—It is important for us to remember at the outset that a huge amount of the pain of which we ourselves are the unwilling witnesses, perhaps even victims, to-day is the direct or indirect result of sin, and being such it is wholly unjustifiable for us to cast the tiniest stigma of blame upon the Almighty for its existence. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, yea, even unto the third and fourth generation. This statement is not a mere piece of philosophic theory; it is a tremendous present-day fact of which even the most unreflecting among us cannot fail to take notice. Consequences are God’s commentaries.

II. The discipline of pain.—But my purpose now is rather to dwell upon pain and suffering regarded from their disciplinary point of view. I would appeal to the testimony of the Gospels. I do not mean necessarily the experience of great thinkers, but also that of the humblest and most commonplace of the sons of men. Can we fail to recognise it as a truth that pain and suffering have been responsible, times without number, for the development of the most beautiful traits of Christian character? Is it not an incontestable fact that pain is, as it were, a great moral lever wielding a far mightier power than riches, or force, or both. The road to victory lies across the burning, fiery furnace of martyrdom. It was in the presence of a Man of Sorrows that the great unshaken imperial might of Rome was at length compelled to bow, and at last crumbled to atoms. Hence we can understand the tremendous words of the Master when He charged us to take up our cross and follow Him. Pain, suffering, discipline, these are potent beyond anything else to uplift our poor human nature to its true height. Trial or suffering, this must be the lot of us all. It was through discipline like this that the great Captain of our salvation, wearing the robe of flesh, was exalted to the right hand of the Father Himself, and we ourselves cannot rebel against a similar lot. ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.’ Personal suffering—this is a cross which we must inevitably endure if we desire our own individual souls to be filled with the Divine grace of sympathy, if we desire to take our share in bearing the burdens of our comrades. It will quicken our spiritual perceptions till we become possessed of an insight, altogether foreign to any previous experience, an insight which will impel us to extend a helping hand to a companion who has perhaps been racked with some long agony. The very fact that we ourselves have partaken of God’s gift of suffering will throw around us in the eyes of our fellow-men a bright halo of love. Whether it be the soldiers who have fought shoulder to shoulder through same toilsome campaign or the patriots who have sworn that they will give their life-blood, if need be, for the triumph of their cause, or the husband and wife upon whose heads the storms of adversity have descended in blinding torrents; these will be the people who will be able to exclaim with the full heart of the Psalmist, ‘It is good for me that I have been in trouble.’

III. Christianity and life.—Suffering and discipline, then, are mighty factors in our spiritual education, and when we dwell upon such themes as these, the inherent reasonableness of much which would be otherwise dark and inscrutable is beginning to dawn on our minds. Now we are ascended to higher ground still. The very clouds themselves seem to be rolling away. We almost fancy that we can get a glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem. Life—this is the great title of Christianity—remember not simply the purification of this life, passed in this world of lights and shadows, has the promise of an infinitely purer, grander life in the vast ages which are as yet unborn. Once realise and take home to yourselves the great fact that this world is not an end of itself, but rather a school of character, and the discipline of pain and suffering seems forthwith to fall into its place as a normal and necessary element in the Divine government of the world. We are constrained to believe that each one of us exists for a definite purpose, but the purpose which is apparently the sign of each personality is ever being ceaselessly baffled. In all that we attempt to perform we are fettered, shackled, hampered. Pleasure, knowledge, achievement, each of these in turn breaks down, and as we fall upon them they pierce us through and through. But remember, we are working for the most glorious of futures, when the life we now enjoy will attain to its complete development, when we shall indeed know what it is to realise ourselves; for we shall wake up with Christ’s own likeness and be satisfied with it.

Rev. Canon Perkins.