February 10, 2019 – 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances.
—1 Thessalonians 5:18

It is common Christian philosophy that our sufferings may, through the grace of God, be the means of improving our characters.11 Such is by no means a matter of course. Sufferings may be borne with gloom and brooding so as greatly to damage character. But devout souls may regard affliction as but a loving Father’s discipline, meant for their highest good. There has never been a devout life that did not share this experience. To be exempt would, as the Bible declares, give proof that we are not children of God. Many of us could testify that the sorrows of life have, by God’s blessing, done us good.
If we believe this to be true, and it is a belief clearly founded on Scripture, then can’t we contrive, even amid the severest sufferings, to be thankful for the benefits of affliction?
Remember, too, our seasons of affliction make real to us divine compassion and sympathy. When you look with parental anguish on your own suffering child, then you know the meaning of those words, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him” (Ps. 103:13). When you find the trials of life hard to bear, then it becomes sweet to remember that our High Priest can sympathize with our weaknesses, who was “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Thus affliction brings to mind views of the divine character, which otherwise we would never fully gain.
Besides all this, remember that the sufferings of this present life will but enhance the life to come. A thousand times have I remembered the text of my first funeral sermon, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” These are the present things now—all around us and within us, but the time is coming when they will be the old order, quite passed away.
Skillful composers make use of discords in music. The jarring discord is solved and makes more sweet the harmony into which it passes. And oh! the time is coming when all the pains and pangs of this present life will seem to have been only a brief, discordant prelude to an everlasting harmony.
—John A. Broadus