“Affliction teaches us to know ourselves. In prosperity we are for the most part strangers to ourselves. God makes us know affliction, that we may better know ourselves. We see that corruption in our hearts in the time of affliction, which we would not believe was there.” (Thomas Watson p27)
It’s a lesson which is nigh on impossible to learn in peacetime: Knowing yourself. How can you see yourself as you actually are? The ‘you’ of peace, health, vitality, popularity, usefulness, respect and friendship is always something of a caricature. Happy times are not generally conducive to serious self-reflection (“we are for the most part strangers to ourselves”). This is more forthcoming when the celebration stops. Watson calls us to see the Divine hand in this. When you lie in the bed ill, or heartbroken, or angry, or bereaved God is giving you an opportunity. An opportunity to get to know yourself. Now, a normal sane reaction to this is scorn: ‘Thanks very much! I get to endure all this pain and the reward is to get more familiar with myself; the embittered soul battling underneath this misery.’
On the face of it, not a very enticing offer. But look again, and there really is a worthwhile gift to be discerned. That little word ‘corruption’, quoted above, is not one that we are used to using in its non-metaphorical sense. Metaphorically, we speak of ‘corrupt officials’ who may be bought with a bribe, or of ‘corrupt national systems’ where that same spirit manifests more broadly. In literal use, corruption is rottenness – and in Watson’s text above, the referent is your heart. To sensitively draw a friend’s attention to the cream cheese on their upper-lip without inadvertently shaming them is a tricky task. To highlight the darkness, the rottenness, of the selfish motives of their heart – and most painfully, where they supposed their motives to be pure – is quite another operation. It’s one that makes plain to us the “corruption in our hearts… which we would not believe was there“. The God of the Bible, the father of Jesus Christ, is committed to just that level of surgery on those who entrust themselves to him. That kind of determination, when personally applied, gives a serious hue to Philippians 1:6 where Paul says, “the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (my emphasis)
So how do these thoughts cash out for you and I? This year has offered a wider variety of afflictions to wider array of people than most years in living memory. I wonder what kinds of recent personal affliction you can call to mind now? Disappointment, unexpected isolation, illness, poverty – these things are real and part of me feels bad for rubbing them in our faces. I’m not trying to be a black cloud here, but neither am I advocating Oprah-esque positivity. Personally, this year has had elements that could genuinely make it either one of the worst or best years I have known. And this won’t be decided by a ‘pros and cons’ calculation in which obvious blessings tip the balance. I could stack up the unexpected benefits – the pleasure of seeing my family way more than I expected to, the gift of abundant time and space to think, study, create and play etc. – and then compare these to the pains of losing work, income, sense of value and direction. No, the outcome is more than a little dependent on the finality with which the afflictions are viewed and the traction that they are allowed to have in one’s self-reflections. Without making an exact parallel or being melodramatic, it puts me in mind of the semi-colon tattoos which some have – moments which could have put pay to the course of a life are instead (and non-trivially), translated into new beginnings. Scripturally, this is borne out in Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” especially that last clause, because it’s perfectly possible to endure hardship, discipline, affliction and not be trained by it. A critical and prayerful engagement with the pain through sincere and sustained asking of the ‘why?’ questions is required. Then being alert to the answers. If you do it right, you are led to see yourself, it hurts and reformation becomes possible. The way out is through, but getting out is not the primary aim.
With all the advantages of affliction being listed here and in the past few posts, perhaps it’s easy to forget (and here I am wildly overestimating my powers of persuasion), that these afflictions of life are in fact evils. Let’s hear it from Watson again: “Do not mistake me; I do not say that of their own nature the worst things are good… though they are naturally evil, yet the wise over-ruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them, they are morally good.” (Watson 25) Perhaps I should have started with chapter one; Watson’s outline of how ‘The Best Things’ work to grow you. But we’ve just had 2020 so, you know, I stand by starting with the Worst Things.