Afflictions

Have your afflictions worked on you? No doubt they have an effect on you.

Psalm 34:19

Scripture tells us ,”Many are the afflictions of the righteous but The LORD delivers him from them all”

Afflictions serve many purposes in our lives. I will not get into this. Affliction is guaranteed in this life.

My question is, “What has affliction done to you?” “What has affliction accomplished in your life?”

Kindly choose from below:

i. Affliction has made me a sorrowful, sad, depressed person. I do not feel like living but I do not feel like dying either. I have come to accept misery. I do not say anything. I hope others will see my sorrow and do something about it. I know GOD knows and sees. I hope HE will do something about it.

Beloved, if this is you, remember the joy of The LORD is your strength. Remember, rejoice in The LORD always and again I say rejoice. Take time, read and read again your favorite scripture. Think about it, dwell on it day and night. The word of GOD is light, it chases darkness away. Remember, even if HE slay me, yet will I trust HIM.

ii. Affliction has made me self righteous. I am now a philosopher. I have been in the school of life and I can teach you a thing or two. In fact I can teach you all you need to know about suffering. I have seen it all. Been through it all. What can you tell me? You think you are suffering? Let me tell you my sob story. Yours is nothing.

Beloved, if this is you. Humble yourself. Affliction has made you proud. The purpose of the affliction was to help you relate with the suffering of others. The purpose of the affliction was to give you strength and the ability to carry another of GOD’s children through their own affliction without you falling apart. So, get off your high horse, Believe me, you haven’t seen or heard the half of it.

iii. Affliction has made me ramble on and on about my afflictions and trouble. Anybody who sees me will have to know what I have been through. Complaining? Grumbling? No! No! I’m just narrating my afflictions once again. My affliction defines me. It will always pop up somewhere in my conversation. “Oh my dear affliction, I am addicted to you! I love you for you have given me a platform”

Beloved, if this is you, remember that you are not supposed to worship anything or anyone other than The ALMIGHTY GOD, YAHWEH is HIS NAME. Idolaters are going to hell. Further, by profiting off of your affliction, who knows, maybe you have received your reward. Affliction should shape you into the image of CHRIST and teach you lessons that you can verbalize without you being in the center. JESUS CHRIST is always the center. If this is not the case perhaps you should wait until you are ready to testify or pray for grace to communicate to others what the affliction in your life was supposed to achieve in your life and in the life of those who come around you.

Affliction is not supposed to make you sound like a pathetic broken record. It is supposed to make you courageous and brave like Paul. Remember the “I know a man who died…”. Researchers will tell you that the man is Paul himself. Paul himself does not tell you, “You know I died! Here is my book of how I died and what I saw”. Human nature likes mystery and mysticism because it diverts our attention from what we are supposed to face and address. Glorifying our afflictions and sufferings is a form of idolatry. Let the people who are hearing about your affliction do some analysis and think about what you are saying and practically apply to their own lives.

iv. Affliction has made me learn to wait on The LORD. I do not understand all but I believe… No, I know that The LORD is with me and will not leave me or forsake me. Through all the afflictions that threatened to swallow me, by HIS Hand I escaped. Glory to HIS NAME. At one point, I demanded answers, but now I know that answers will not satisfy me, answers only bring more questions. Only HIS presence does. HIS absence sends me into panic . An experience I never want repeated. O LORD, help me to obey without question, without fear. You are my SAVIOUR, like a tree planted on the waters, I shall not be moved.

Beloved, is this you? What do you want me to say except Luke 10:42?

v. Affliction has made me a cynic, a critic. I sneer at everybody and everything. Everybody will suffer for what I suffered. They must feel my pain. They must experience the cruelty and meanness I have experienced. I will be the one to afflict. I am the instrument that will be used to afflict others. I will deal with them with whatever weapon I have, words, actions, commissions, omissions.