IN II Cor. 12, 7, Paul writes: “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a sharp thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.”
What particular suffering St. Paul underwent, is not told us, and every surmise regarding it is merely a fruitless effort, to satisfy the stimulus of curiosity.
You do well, therefore, not to indulge this stimulus.
It brings you no further, and prevents you from gathering the fruit, that in this brief report from Paul’s life Scripture offers you.
Suffice it, that Paul suffered.
While hundreds and thousands of gay spirits, from whose lives, as we would say, nothing was lost, at Corinth as well as at Athens, revelled in the freshness of perfect strength, the great apostle of the Lord, who was called to lead the most wearing of lives, and to travel around half the then known world, had to carry the load of anxious and bitter suffering.
Not a suffering from youth up, but an impairment of physical strength, that overtook him, just when the Lord had brought him to the height of his apostolic ministry and spiritual ecstasy had taken most powerful hold of him.
Then it was that his health broke down; and he was overtaken by virulent and bitter suffering, which he could not describe better, than by saying, that it seemed to him, as though a demon assaulted him and beat him with fists.
And then Paul had prayed indeed that that suffering might be taken away from him; but the Lord had not taken it away.
He would indeed receive abundant grace to bear it patiently; but that grace had to be sufficient for him.
Just to reveal the power of that grace, Paul had to be afflicted with that suffering.
For himself, that with his soul he might enter the more deeply into the sweetness of that grace.
For the churches of his time, that they might the more highly admire the divine origin of so powerful an apostolate in an apostle physically broken down such as he.
And no less for believers of all ages, that when God afflicts them in the body, they too might understand the purpose of their suffering, and in case their prayers are not heard might not fall away from their faith.
FOR in such painful and oppressive physical suffering S. Paul does not stand alone.
Such suffering has age upon age troubled many believers. And to this day in every city and in every village you find those, who reading this troubled word of Paul, are at once reminded of a thorn in their own flesh, and from whose lips falls the complaint: “So it also took hold of me.”
Such suffering takes on all sorts of forms.
At one time it is deafness or weakness of vision. At another weakness of lungs and difficulty in breathing. Then again painful sickness, facial neuralgia, or stiffness of joints. There are also results of a fall, of a delicate operation, or the after-effects of an illness. Altogether changing forms, wherein this one great evil appears, by which our health is impaired; by which we are hindered in our elastic utterance of life; and whereby every time again courage is extinguished in our spirit.
And, especially when it is a lingering illness, it is so hard to bear, because then in most instances sympathy on the part of those around us grows languid, and finally dies down altogether.
O, when suddenly you are stricken down by an acute illness, or some accident overtakes you, then the compassion of human sympathy flows toward you from every side; then every one does his best to help you; and the comfort of love is so great and so sweet.
But when this goes on for days and weeks, and the suffering does not abate, then our environment adapts itself to our pitiable condition. One becomes so accustomed to the sight of our suffering. What good is it to say much more about it? Things are as they are. Such is our lot. And in the end one knows no better, than that such and not otherwise is our permanent state.
But the sufferer himself does not become accustomed to it. To him every morning the affliction is new, and every evening he pours out again his complaint before his God.
Ineradicably the sense, that we were not created to suffer, continues to struggle against the pain, that restlessly accompanies him upon his pathway through life.
And when daily he sees so many around him, who strong and happy and in full enjoyment of health live the rich life of earth, who then averts the sad complaint from his lips: “O, My God, why am not I as they”?
SO Satan mingles himself in all such unbearable suffering.
He, the evil demon, who is always bent upon disturbing our peace, spurs us on, to murmur against that thorn in the flesh.
First he whispers in our ear, that we should pray God, to deliver us from it. “If then you are a child of God, where is your heavenly Father, to help you?”
And then one prays.
He prays ever more ardently: “O, God, Thou canst deliver me. Thou hast delivered so many. Deliver also me.”
But no answer comes.
The suffering keeps on.
Sometimes it even increases, rather than grows less.
And then Satan whispers a new temptation in the soul, and asks: “Where is now your God?”
A mocking of your faith. A holding up of your prayer to ridicule. A flouting of your God, Whom you loved.
And then additionally, pain becomes the more severe and makes the spirit in us the more uneasy, so that our soul loses her equipoise altogether, and then, without any one having any intimation of it, such a temptation can become so demoniac, so satanic, that there have been sufferers, who actually for months and years fell away from their faith; cursed God; and rebelliously and angrily shut themselves up in the bitterness of their own heart.
BUT it can also be otherwise; and frequently it is different.
When the soul may come to realize, that God the Lord can also order such suffering of His child, the more richly and the more fully to reveal in him the majesty of His grace.
Then also at first prayer is made for deliverance, and rarely is that prayer silenced altogether.
But yet, the soul at length becomes convinced, that in such suffering God intends something different with us.
That such suffering does not come upon us by chance, but comes to us from Him, and that He chose us to bear this suffering, that in this our suffering it might become evident, even with suffering most prolonged and most bitter, what sacred medicine of soul grace is.
And if the eye might but open to this, O, then each day brings experience of new grace; till finally the spirit made willing in us begins to coöperate with grace, to triumph over this suffering and to show Satan and the world, that the happiness God’s child enjoys, is too rich and too abounding, to be shadowed even by severest suffering.
And so at times sufferers have been seen, who were so gloriously disciplined by grace and in grace, that at the last it seemed, as though they had become insensible to their trouble, yea, that they took pleasure in it, with a heavenly smile upon their face to mock their suffering.
YET Christian love suffers loss, when he who lives in the environment of such a sufferer, takes advantage of that exalted state of grace, and, because of the jubilation on the part of the sufferer in the midst of his distress, forsakes the duty of compassion.
He who loves of himself suffers sympathetically along with the sufferer, and he who can witness suffering, without feeling this sympathy in his heart, has extinguished love in himself.
And that must not be in a family, where the Name of Jesus is invoked, because it antagonizes the Cross.
He has borne our sicknesses, and the Cross of Golgotha ever remains the holy symbol, that continuously calls upon us to weep with those who weep, and by taking a part of their suffering upon ourselves, to lighten the cross they carry.
This must be done for their sakes, because as priests and priestesses of God we have to minister unto them something of the love of God.
This must be done for our own sakes, because only the hardened egoist eats up his own happiness, and is not willing that trouble of others shall spoil it.
And above all this must be done for God’s sake.
For sovereign-like He portions out sorrow and joy in most unequal measures, that by that very inequality, he who suffers, should find a hand of love to grasp; and he whose cup thus far has been nothing but joy, should extend the hand of seeking, serving, and comforting to the sufferer.
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