“Faith can make use of the waters of affliction to swim faster to Christ” (Watson 31)
This phrase, with its natural-world imagery and its Christocentricity sounds like it could have come from a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon a couple of centuries after Watson’s time. What is interesting to me is the modality in that first clause: ‘Faith can make use…’ which suggests that equally, faith could not make use of the afflictions of life. And of course, it is not faith in an abstract or impersonal sense; faith is exercised in personal trust. It is the person of faith who is in view.
The thing at stake in affliction is still a choice for the person of faith as to which way they will swim. To extend the image, the current created by the affliction is Divinely intended to aid the sufferer in swimming to Christ. Conversely, there is still the possibility of swimming away from Christ in the waters of affliction but for the Christian, despite the disorientation occasioned by the ‘affliction’, this is actually harder to do. In effect it is a swimming against the flow, and against the actual purpose in the suffering. So the motion is not enforced but it is logical; the pain is supposed to draw you near, not push you away, and you can choose whether or not you go with it.
The aforementioned Charles Spurgeon speaks about this force of direction as the ‘blessed hurricane*’
“In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone!”
(Charles Haddon Spurgeon – Morning and Evening – Morning reading for August 31st)
It is this being ‘compelled’ which Watson is talking about too. My point is that, here at least, compelled is different in strength to forced. Despite the powerful working which Spurgeon portrays, I can’t imagine him exchanging those terms. It is the right and natural course that trouble should send the believer to God, and something to celebrate; as Spurgeon says “it is a happy trouble that drives you to your Father!”
* In searching for this quote, I found the top result returned was actually a song on the theme by a friend of mine.