After recently preaching on Romans 8:28-29 and then listening to Keith’s lesson on how to pray for those who are suffering (“Praying in Light of Job”) this past Sunday, I came across this related counsel from J. C. Ryle:
Sickness is meant…
- To make us think—to remind us that we have a soul as well as a body—an immortal soul—a soul that will live forever in happiness or in misery—and that if this soul is not saved we had better never have been born.
- To teach us that there is a world beyond the grave.
- To make us look at our past lives honestly, fairly, and conscientiously.
- To make us see the emptiness of the world and its utter inability to satisfy the highest and deepest needs of the soul.
- To send us to our Bibles.
- To make us pray.
- To make us repent and break off our sins.
- To draw us to Christ.
- To make us feeling and sympathizing towards others.
Summary: Beware of fretting, murmuring, complaining, and giving way to an impatient spirit. Regard your sickness as a blessing in disguise—a good and not an evil—a friend and not an enemy. No doubt we should all prefer to learn spiritual lessons in the school of ease and not under the rod. But rest assured that God knows better than we do how to teach us. The light of the last day will show you that there was a meaning and a “need be” in all your bodily ailments. The lessons that we learn on a sick-bed, when we are shut out from the world, are often lessons which we should never learn elsewhere. [Tract: Christ in the Sick Room; HT: J.C. Ryle Quotes.]
Words of Grace 