Growing Pains:

How affliction works for the good of those who love God

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). As the hard frosts in winter bring on the flowers in the spring, as the night ushers in the morning star, so the evils of affliction produce much good to those who love God. I shall show you several ways how affliction works for good.

• Affliction is our preacher and tutor. Affliction teaches what sin is. In the Word preached, we hear what a dreadful thing sin is, that it is both defiling and damning, but we fear it no more than a painted lion. Therefore, God lets loose affliction, and then we feel sin to be bitter through the fruit of it. A sickbed often teaches more than a sermon.
• Affliction teaches us to know ourselves. In prosperity we are for the most part strangers to ourselves. God makes us know affliction so that we may better know ourselves. We see the corruption in our hearts in the time of affliction that we would not otherwise believe was there.
• Afflictions work for our good in that they conform us to Christ. God’s rod is a pencil to draw a more lifelike image of Christ upon us. It is good that there should be symmetry and proportion between the Head and the members. Would we be parts of Christ’s mystical body and not like Him? His head was crowned with thorns; do we think to be crowned with roses? It is good to be like Christ, even though it be by sufferings.
• Afflictions work for our good in that they are destructive of sin. There is corruption in the best heart: Affliction by degrees works it out, as the fire works out the dross from the gold. Afflictions are the medicine that God uses to carry off our spiritual diseases.
• Afflictions work for good in that they are the means of loosening our hearts from the world. When you dig away the earth from the root of a tree, it is to loosen the tree from the earth. So God digs away our earthly comforts to loosen our hearts from the earth. God would have the world hang as a loose tooth that, being twitched away, does not trouble us much. Is it not good to be weaned?
• Afflictions work for good in that they make way for comfort. “Your grief will turn to joy” (John 16:20). Here is the water turned into wine. After a bitter pill, God gives sugar. Paul had his prison songs. God’s rod has honey at the end of it.
• Afflictions work for good in that they magnify us. God magnifies us by affliction in three ways. First, think how He condescends so low as to take notice of us. It is an honor that God would pay attention to dust and ashes. It is a magnifying of us that God thinks us worthy to be smitten.

Second, afflictions also magnify us in that they are ensigns of glory, signs of sonship. “Endure hardship as discipline: God is treating you as sons” (Hebrews 12:7). Every print of the rod is a badge of honor.

Third, afflictions tend to magnify the saints in that they make them renowned in the world. Soldiers have never been so admired for their victories as the saints have been for their sufferings.

• Afflictions work for good in that they are the means of making us happy. “Blessed is the man whom God corrects” (Job 5:17). It may be said, How do afflictions make us happy? We reply that, being sanctified, they bring us nearer to God. When the prodigal was pinched with want, then he returned home to his father (see Luke 15:11–32). When the dove could not find any rest for the sole of her foot, then she flew to the ark (see Genesis 8:8–9). When God brings a deluge of affliction upon us, then we fly to the ark of Christ. Thus affliction makes us happy in bringing us nearer to God.
• Afflictions work for good in that they put to silence the wicked. How ready are they to asperse and calumniate the godly, that they serve God only for self-interest. Therefore God will have His people endure sufferings for religion so that He may put a padlock on the lying lips of wicked men. How it puts a damper on wicked men when they see that the godly will keep close to God in a suffering condition and that, when they lose all, they yet will hold fast their integrity.
• Afflictions work for good in that they make way for glory (see 2 Corinthians 4:17). As plowing prepares the earth for a crop, so afflictions prepare and make us fit for glory. As the painter lays his gold upon dark colors, so God first lays the dark colors of affliction, and then He lays the golden color of glory. The vessel is first seasoned before wine is poured into it; the vessels of mercy are first seasoned with affliction, and then the wine of glory is poured in.

Thus we see afflictions are not prejudicial but beneficial to the saints. We should not so much look at the evil of affliction as the good; not so much at the dark side of the cloud as the light.

This excerpt comes from Thomas Watson’s book A Divine Cordial (1663).

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