The Gift of Illness

“I dare say the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness. . . . Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house.  It is the best book in a minister's library” (C.H. Spurgeon, An All Round Ministry, 384).

I write this reclining on the living room couch for the third consecutive Saturday.  Week one - it was a general bug of some kind; week two – pneumonia in one lung; and now week three – the flu.  Other than when I was recovering from my bike accident, I’ve never dealt with this kind of ongoing illness.  “Take your medicine, stay hydrated and sleep it off” has been the advise my doctor.  So that is what I’m trying to do. 

I know I am not alone in this plight.  Many in our church family have been suffering with sickness and disease for a long time.  What I’ve had for the past three weeks is nothing compares to what many have been experiencing for years.  Throughout our community it has been a rough year with the flu bug and general sickness making the rounds from school to school and house to house.  As Christians we are certainly not immune these travails (despite what the health and wealth liars might otherwise say). 

Last Sunday morning I spent time with our Deacons walking through Visit the Sick by Brian Croft.  This small book was written for ministers and church members as a resource to help us better understand and care for those who are struggling with sickness and disease.  I highly recommend it to you. 

For me the lessons from the book are no longer theoretical.  This bout with illness has given me the opportunity to reflect on the reality of our physical limitations and weakness.  Croft includes in his book an essay written by John Charles Ryle.  In Sickness, J.C. Ryle addresses the topic illness as a faithful Pastor and theologian, and in it offers some timeless truths that have greatly encouraged me as I have reflected on them. 

This paragraph summarizes Ryle’s essay, and reminds me of the grace we receive in sickness:  “Beware of fretting, murmuring, complaining, and giving way to an impatient spirit.  Regard your sickness as a blessing in disguise – a good and not an evil – a friend and not an enemy.  No doubt we should all prefer to learn spiritual lessons in the school of ease and not under the rod. But rest assured that God knows better than we do how to teach us.  The light of the last day will show you that there was a meaning and a “need be” in all your bodily ailments.  The lessons that we learn on a sick-bed, when we are shut out from the world, are often lessons which we should never learn elsewhere.”

The full-abridged essay by Ryle is posted on my blog site.  I encourage you to read it there. 

I have summarized these lessons and applications from J.C Ryle’s essay here.

Sickness helps to remind men of death. The most live as if they were never going to die. They follow business, or pleasure, or politics, or science, as if earth was their eternal home.  They plan and scheme for the future, like the rich fool in the parable, as if they had a long lease of life, and were not tenants at will.  A heavy illness sometimes goes far to dispel these delusions. It awakens men from their day –dreams, and reminds them that they have to die as well as to live. Now this I say emphatically is a mighty good.

Sickness helps to make men think seriously of God, and their souls, and the world to come. The most in their days of health can find no time for such thoughts. They dislike them. They put them away. They count them troublesome and disagreeable.  Now a severe disease has sometimes a wonderful power of mustering and rallying these thoughts, and bringing them up before the eyes of a man’s soul.

Sickness helps to soften men's hearts, and teach them wisdom. The natural heart is as hard as a stone. It can see no good in anything which is not of this life, and no happiness excepting in this world. A long illness sometimes goes far to correct these ideas. It exposes the emptiness and hollowness of what the world calls "good" things, and teaches us to hold them with a loose hand.

Sickness helps to level and humble us. We are all naturally proud and high–minded. Few, even of the poorest, are free from the infection. Few are to be found who do not look down on somebody else, and secretly flatter themselves that they are "not like other people." A sick bed is a mighty tamer of such thoughts as these. It forces on us the mighty truth that we are all poor worms, that we "dwell in houses of clay," and are "crushed more readily than a moth." (Job 4:19), and that kings and subjects, masters and servants, rich and poor, are all dying creatures, and will soon stand side by side at the bar of God.  In the sight of the coffin and the grave it is not easy to be proud.  Surely anything that teaches that lesson is good.

Sickness helps to test men’s religion, of what kind it is.  Disease is sometimes most useful to a man in exposing the utter worthlessness of his soul’s foundation. It often shows him that he has nothing solid under his feet, and nothing firm under his hand. It makes him find out that, although he may have had a form of religion, he has been all his life worshipping "an unknown God."  Many a creed looks well on the smooth waters of health, which turns out utterly unsound and useless on the rough waves of the sick bed.  Surely anything that makes us find out the real character of our faith is a good.

The prevalence of sickness calls us to always live in such a way that we are prepared to meet God.  Sickness brings to the forefront of our minds the reality of death. Death is the door through which we must all pass to judgment. Judgment is the time when we must at last see God face to face. Surely the first lesson which the inhabitant of a sick and dying world should learn should be to prepare to meet his or her God.

The prevalence of sickness calls us to live in such a way that we will always bear it patiently. Sickness is no doubt a trying thing to flesh and blood. To feel our nerves unstrung, and our natural strength declining, to be obliged to sit still and be cut off from all our usual avocations, to see our plans broken off and our purposes disappointed, to endure long hours, and days, and nights of weariness and pain,–all this is a severe strain on sinful human nature. No wonder irritability and impatience are brought out by disease! Surely in such a dying world as this we should study patience.

The prevalence of sickness calls us to always be ready to feel with and help our fellow human beings.   Sickness is never very far from us.  Few are the families who have not some sick relative. Few are the parishes where you will not find some one ill. But wherever there is sickness, there is a call to duty.  A little timely assistance in some cases, a kindly visit in others, a friendly inquiry, a mere expression of compassion, may do a vast good. These are the sort of things which soften rough edges, and bring men together, and promote good feelings. These are ways by which you may ultimately lead people to Christ and save their souls.  These are good deeds to which every professing Christian should be ready to do.  In a world full of sickness and disease we ought to "carry each other’s burdens,"   "and be kind and compassionate to one another." (Gal. 6:2; Eph. 4:32.)

Ryle concludes the essay with these four points of application:

(1) What will you do when you are ill?  

What will you do when you are ill?  The time must come when you, as well as others, must go down the dark valley of the shadow of death. The hour must come when you, like all your ancestors, must become sick and die. The time may be near or far off.  God only knows. But whenever the time may be, I ask again, What are you going to do? Where will you turn for comfort?  On what will you rest your soul? Where will you find your solace?  If you were going to live forever in this world I would not address you as I do. But it cannot be.  There is no escaping the common lot of all mankind. Nobody can die in our stead. The day must come when we must each go to our long home.  Against that day I want you to be prepared.

(2) Acquaint yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ without delay. Repent, be converted, flee to Christ, and be saved.

Either you have a soul or you have not. You will surely never deny that you have. Then if you have a soul, seek that soul’s salvation.  Of all gambling in the world, there is none so reckless as that of the man who lives unprepared to meet God, and yet puts off repentance.  Either you have sins or you have not. If you have (and who dares to deny it?), let go of those sins, throw away your transgressions, and turn away from them without delay.  Either you need a Savior or you do not. If you do, flee to the only Savior this very day, and cry mightily to Him to save your soul.

(3)Be willing to lie quietly in God's hand when they are ill.

I exhort all true Christians who read this paper to remember how much they may glorify God in the time of sickness, and to be willing to lie quietly in God's hand when they are ill.

I feel it very important to touch on this point. I know how ready the heart of a believer is to faint, and how busy Satan is in suggesting doubts and questionings, when the body of a Christian is weak.  I have seen something of the depression and melancholy which sometimes comes upon the children of God when they are suddenly laid aside by disease.

I earnestly urge all sick believers to remember that they may honor God as much by patient suffering as they can by active work. It often shows more grace to sit still than it does to go to and fro, and perform great exploits.  I beg them to remember that Christ cares for them as much when they are sick as He does when they are well, and that the very admonishing they feel so acutely is sent in love, and not in anger.

(4) Keep up a habit of close communion with Christ, and never to be afraid of "going too far" in your religion.

If you and I want to be “greatly encouraged" in our time of need, we must not be content with a bare union with Christ. (Heb. 6:18.)  We must seek to know something of heart-felt, experimental communion with Him.  Never, never let us forget, that "union" is one thing, and "communion" another.  Thousands, I fear, who know what "union" with Christ is, know nothing of "communion."

The day may come when after a long fight with disease, we shall feel that medicine can do no more, and that nothing remains but to die.  Friends will be standing by, unable to help us. Hearing, eyesight, even the power of praying, will be fast failing us. The world and its shadows will be melting beneath our feet. Eternity, with its realities, will be looming large before our minds. What shall support us in that trying hour? What shall enable us to feel, "I fear no evil"? (Psalm 23:4.) Nothing, nothing can do it but close communion with Christ. Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, Christ putting His right arm under our heads, Christ felt to be sitting by our side, Christ can alone give us the complete victory in the last struggle.