AFFLICTION
See also: Adversity; Burdens; Difficulties; Hardships; Suffering; Trials
A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.
The Bible, Psalm 34:19
He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
The Bible, Isaiah 53:7 kjv
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
The Bible, 2 Corinthians 4:17 kjv
Be … patient in affliction …
The Bible, Romans 12:12
The labors of the farm do not seem strange to the farmer; the storm at sea is not unexpected by the sailor; sweat causes no wonder to the hired laborer; and so to those who have chosen to live the life of piety the afflictions of this world are not unforeseen. Nay, to each of the aforesaid is joined a labor that is appropriate and well known to those who share it – a labor that is not chosen for its own sake, but for the enjoyment of expected blessings. For hopes, which hold and weld together man’s entire life, give consolation for the hardships which fall to the lot of each of these.
Basil the Great
Saints spring and thrive most internally, when they are most externally afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue.
Thomas Brooks
In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God.
John Bunyan
Blessed is he who bears affliction with thankfulness.
Abba Copres
Through Christ’s satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is changed with regard to believers. As death, which was, at first, the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (Is. 57:2); so afflictions are not the rod of God’s anger, but the gentle medicine of a tender father.
Tobias Crisp
God does not lead His children around hardship, but leads them straight through hardship. But He leads! And amidst the hardship, He is nearer to them than ever before.
Otto Dibelius
If afflictions refine some, they consume others.
Thomas Fuller
God’s wounds cure, sin’s kisses kill.
William Gurnall
Not to be afflicted is a sign of weakness; for, therefore God imposeth no more on me, because he sees I can bear no more.
Joseph Hall
Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy.
Felicia Hemans
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.
Matthew Henry
The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when we see them in the wrong light: when we see them in the hand of God, Who dispenses them; when we know that it is our loving Father who abases and distresses us; our sufferings will lose their bitterness and become even a matter of consolation.
Brother Lawrence
No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in a wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have “learned in suffering what they taught in song.” In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim’s Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He puts them in the fire.
George MacDonald
There is more safety with Christ in the tempest, than without Christ in the calmest waters. The brook would lose its song if you removed the stones. My soul, alas, needs these uneasinesses in outward things, to be driven to take refuge in God.
Henry Martyn
No affliction would trouble a child of God, if they knew God’s reasons for sending it.
G. Campbell Morgan
A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us.
Andrew Murray
He knows our sorrows, not merely as He knows all things, but as one who has been in our situation, and who, though without sin Himself, endured when upon earth inexpressibly more for us than He will ever lay upon us.
John Newton
I asked the Lord that I might grow,
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.
It was He who taught me thus to pray,
And He I trust has answered prayer.
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.
I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request.
And by his love’s constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel,
The hidden evils of my heart.
And let the angry powers of hell,
Assault my soul in every part.
Yes, more with His own hand, he seemed,
Intent to aggravate my woe.
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
“Lord, why is this?” I trembling cried.
“Will You pursue this worm to death?”
“This is the way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and strength.”
John Newton
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Chinese proverb
The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.
Russian proverb
I exhort you and beseech you in the compassion of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; you must have it. Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security.
Samuel Rutherford
A fact, which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger…we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardized Western well-being.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian; it benefits you; it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for heaven.
C.H. Spurgeon
The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
C.H. Spurgeon
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.
C.H. Spurgeon
Afflictions cannot sanctify us except as they are used by Christ as His mallet and His chisel.
C.H. Spurgeon
This will deliver you from clinging to the present world, and make you long for those eternal things which are so soon to be revealed to you.
C.H. Spurgeon
Eminent usefulness usually necessitates eminent affliction.
C.H. Spurgeon
As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it.
C.H. Spurgeon
The jewels of a Christian are his afflictions.
C.H. Spurgeon
We must believe that the only reason why God afflicts his people must be this:
“In love I correct you, your gold to refine
To make you at length in my likeness to shine.”
C.H. Spurgeon
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
C.H. Spurgeon
Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting. Affliction was a sting, but withal a wing: sorrow shall soon fly away.
Thomas Watson
The godly have some good in them,
therefore the devil afflicts them;
and some evil in them,
therefore God afflicts them.
Thomas Watson
“Man is born to trouble” (Job); he is heir apparent to it; he comes into the world with a cry, and goes out with a groan.
Thomas Watson
Afflictions add to the saints’ glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints’ cross is, the heavier will be their crown.
Thomas Watson
What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of sin.
Thomas Watson
I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness. Thus was it with Manasseh, when he was in affliction, “He besought the Lord his God”: even that king’s iron was more precious to him than his gold, his jail a more happy lodging than his palace, Babylon a better school than Jerusalem. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These are our best friends. They are not, indeed, for our pleasure, but for our profit.
Abraham Wright