5. A Preparation for Extensive Usefulness
James Buchanan
Adversity is a means of preparation for extensive usefulness. The complaint which is usually made by those who are visited with affliction in the prime of life is that, when it comes upon us, either in the shape of bodily indisposition or extreme poverty or blighting calumny, it unfits us for the active service of God. On the other hand, many an aged disciple, who is completely disabled by his infirmities, is apt to wonder why he is still preserved in life when his usefulness is apparently gone. But he who considers that the greatest usefulness consists in glorifying God will see at a single glance that there is no ground for such thoughts in either case. In regard even to present usefulness, and without reference to the future service for which affliction may be preparing them, they may glorify God as much by patient suffering as by active service and may thus be in the highest degree useful to those who are around them. The mere consideration of their sufferings may impress many a salutary lesson on the minds of others, especially of the young, while the active and consistent exercise of their Christian graces in such circumstances may afford an example of religion in its sustaining power, such as is admirably fitted to commend it to the acceptance of their friends.
Thus even the aged sufferer, disabled as he is from active duty, may be a powerful witness for Christ. And, although he has no prospect of being restored to his former sphere of exertion, he is occupying with good effect the post which the Lord has assigned to him. If it be true, as unquestionably it is, that even an old blind beggar is not without his moral use in the world, how much more certain is it that the aged and apparently-disabled believer is, even in his greatest infirmities, a blessing to his family and friends. How can he be more useful to them, or how could he better glorify God, than by exhibiting, as he does in the hour of his greatest need, the worth of that divine religion which comforts him in all his tribulations and smooths his path to the grave – nay, which enables him to rise above the love of life and the fear of death and to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory and to bear his testimony to the love and faithfulness of his Lord throughout the whole course of his protracted trials?
Such a man is not useless. O no. Though his limbs be inactive, his memory faded, all his faculties impaired, yet his moral feelings are strong within him, his faith is firm, his hope is heavenly, his heart is full of peace and joy. And many another heart feels that the aged sufferer makes a deeper and more salutary impression on it than all the learning and eloquence of the universities. As an aged believer was wont to say, when reduced to extreme poverty and wholly disabled by a stroke: “I often seem to myself and others to be a useless burden on the world, but I know and believe that God must have something yet to do by me or in me; otherwise I should not be here”.
But while the believer is really occupying a post of usefulness during the time of his affliction, that season is designed, in many cases, to prepare him for more extensive and successful exertion in God’s service hereafter. While the aged believer looks forward to heaven as his only remaining sphere of service, the younger brethren may anticipate a restoration to health and a course of usefulness on earth. And their present afflictions are designed and fitted to prepare them for exerting a higher and more beneficial influence over their fellow men. They do this by their influence in promoting our personal sanctification, by deepening our impressions of the vanity of the world and the value of the soul and the magnitude of eternity, by enlarging our experience of the power of religion and teaching us its unspeakable importance.
In proportion as affliction serves to promote our personal growth in grace, in the same proportion it prepares us for future usefulness. Our capacity of glorifying God in all the ways of private or public duty depends on the condition of our own souls; and if their condition has been improved by the discipline of adversity, our testimony to God and His truth, and our love and care for our fellow men, will be proportionately more constant and more effectual than before. Thus the apostle refers to his own experience during his manifold afflictions as having been a means of fitting him more fully for one important part of the Christian ministry. “Blessed be God,” says he, “even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor 1:3,4).
Everyone can feel the force of these words. The word of comfort comes with unspeakably greater power from the lips of a suffering Saviour or a sorely tried disciple than from the lips of one who has never known adversity. And this holds good, not only of the minister of religion, but of every private Christian. In respect to all the departments of Christian usefulness he is better prepared, by means of his experience, for comforting the afflicted – and also for exhibiting, in his own life and conversation, the sanctifying and supporting power of religion; for commending it to the consideration of his family and friends; and for making many exertions and submitting to many sacrifices, to which others, living in uninterrupted prosperity, might be less inclined to submit. In a word, the deeper the impressions which he has received on his own soul, the better is he prepared, both in point of knowledge and zeal and sympathy, to care for the welfare of others, and to promote it.
1Taken, slightly edited, from Buchanan’s book The Improvement of Affliction. The previous article appeared last month.