Trials

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule 'braying' - or - whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened... and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Editor's Note: Our friend, David Powlison, of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, who also was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, has added some helpful expansions to John Piper’s ten points. Paragraphs beginning with "DP:" are written by David Powlison.

"Like the tearing of my flesh from my bones."

That's how John Bunyan described parting with his family after their brief visits with him in prison. Each time they walked away, John was reminded of the great difficulty his incarceration imposed on them, especially on his blind daughter, Mary. "What sorrow you are likely to have as your portion in this world!" he wrote. "You must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand other calamities, even though I cannot so much as bear the wind blowing upon you."

When he lost his ten children to a wind storm (like hurricane Mitch) that crushed them to death, Job rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Then when he was struck with boils from head to toe, Job said to his God-cursing wife, "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive evil?" (Job 2:10).