Where the health and wealth gospel comes unraveled....

My husband led us in a wonderful Bible study about suffering last Sunday night. He is the theologian, and he unveiled God's use of suffering in our lives.  Here were some of our focal passages from 2 Corinthinans chapter 1:

    ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

    ⁸We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. ⁹Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. ¹⁰He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, ¹¹as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our^[a] behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.


These verses touched a nerve with all of us in the room.  Many of us in our little church have illnesses and other woes
I would love to tell all Christians that they can save themselves from pain and suffering, but that would be unbiblical.  If the Apostle Paul suffered, why not me?  If Jesus suffered and I long to be like him, how do I think that I should escape this means of purging and purifying?  I should cling to it!

Jesus admonished us to follow His example: 

Luke 9:23
Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
 
 
  I can think instantly of a few things that suffering has brought about in my own life:

I am more dependent on God for daily grace

I don't hastily judge others, since I have been tempted and tested in many ways

I ask for direction with finances since God gives me enough, but not great surplus.

I am aware of an "expiration date"--I long for my immortal body that will come only after death

Knowing my own fleshly nature, I think that unmitigated health and a superfluous bank account would render me complacent and prayerless, if not downright decadent and proud.

I've also known various saints who judged and criticized others in speech until they received their own physical "thorn in the flesh." Once again, if Paul needed one to keep pride at bay, how can a lesser mortal such as myself expect to escape without a scrape?
 

Every year, I read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  I am reminded there that the humble things of earth keep us close to an awareness of God.  Daily victory over small habits, entrusting every minute service to God, avoiding taking our selves too seriously all serve to banish the devil and smell the heavenly aroma of God's presence. More than money and ease, I covet the essence of God in my life.  That essence lies more in "the fellowship of His sufferings" than in any other thing. Health and wealth are temporary assets; surely, I'd like to have them if God doles them out to me.  But more than those, I want the ability to cope if a hurricane, or persecution, or cancer, or the death of one of my children becomes my lot in life.  In practicing abiding in God in the small things, surely I'll resort to His comfort in the overwhelming, crushing things.  Even those will seem good if He is surrounding us.