Do You Have An Affliction?

Are you afflicted by something in your life?  Perhaps it is a physical affliction.  Perhaps it is an emotional affliction.  Or perhaps it is a spiritual affliction.  Maybe you are one of those rare cases where it is multiple afflictions.  Whatever your affliction may be, it would seem that the world today has an answer.

My real question today though is not what your affliction is, but rather what your treatment of that affliction is.  For you see, I have a hypothesis that the world today is full of answers to our afflictions that make us feel good, but perhaps don’t actually treat the afflictions themselves.

You can see evidence of this through a simple Google search.  Try it.  Google your affliction and count the responses you get back that offer a world view that is non Theistic in its foundation as opposed to those that are.

Now before I go any further, let me make it plain that there is nothing wrong with treating afflictions through medical, psychological, or therapeutical means.  If you have poor eyesight you need glasses to correct that.  If you have a cold, medicine can help you.  If you are heartbroken, counseling may be a path to recovery.  My problem with the world today is where our focus is.  And I perceive that to be more on our afflictions, and the cures for them, than on the Creator and the sin cursed world that has brought about the afflictions, that we suffer, in the first place.

We seem to think that we have all the answers to our afflictions, or at least more answers than have ever been available before in history, yet we never consider what God has to say about them.  In other words we never consider the Biblical approach to our afflictions but rather only what medicine or psychology has to say about them.

Afflictions are not new in the world.  They have been around since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden.  Paul of Tarsus told us of his afflictions (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), Job was afflicted, I’d argue that both Cain and Abel were afflicted.  And perhaps there are those around us that may not be as normal as we perceive them to be.  Some may hide their afflictions very well.

Certainly our afflictions today cannot be so great as to compare to the afflictions of the early church, those that have experienced hardship during times of war, and certainly not the thieves on the cross (Mark 15:27).  But many will still cry out about how they were born with their afflictions or else cursed with them through no fault of their own.  Perhaps they should consider the blind (John 9:1-3), or the lame (John 5:5-9), or the deaf (Mark 7:31-37), or even the spiritually tormented (Matthew 8:28-34).

Personally, I know of no other living person today whom I would consider more greatly afflicted than those that have had all possession of their faculties compromised.  Such as those that may suffer from Down’s Syndrome or are in a coma.  I have long contemplated the thoughts those that suffer from such afflictions must possess.  Imagine living out your entire life, or even a piece of it, unable to express your deepest and innermost desires or dreams.  And yet, but for the Grace of God, there go I.

But as I stated, I am not interested in what your affliction today is, but rather your treatment of that affliction is.  I am more than sure I could survey enough people to come up with a book full of afflictions that each and every person thinks is the greatest burden any living person has ever had to bear.  However, the number of people that have met their afflictions head on through Faith and Grace, those are rare and hard to come by.

Today, there seems to be a cure for all of our afflictions.  We have adult play doh, adult coloring books, puppy therapy,  Dr. Phil, and a whole host of other so-called treatments for all of our self-diagnosed woes that I neither have the time, nor the inclination to parade before you.  We have cures for our illnesses such as have never been available to mankind before in the history of the world.  When did the Disciples of Jesus Christ ever get to stop at a local drug store and pick up some aspirin?  You want to consider some folks that must have had some colossal headaches for their day, the Disciples of Jesus would have been perfect candidates.  Just as I’m sure that the people dying from the plagues of the middle ages would have loved to have penicillin and some of the other miracle drugs that are available to us today.

People in the past had to cope with whatever came their way because they did not have anywhere near the arsenal to draw upon to fight their afflictions that we seemingly have today.  And yet, in some ways, I’d argue that people in the past fared far better when facing their afflictions, than we do today.

My problem with the treatment of our afflictions today is not that there is a treatment, but rather that we consider the treatment to be the paramount answer in the cure of our afflictions.  We have traded Faith in God for faith in some man made, non-theistic world view, cure to all our ills.  I could care less if coloring therapy does wonders for you or not.  If it does, great!  That is if it really and truly does.  What I care about is whether the coloring therapy is keeping you from spending time with the God of the Universe.  Whether it is compromising your Faith in the Creator.  And whether or not it has become a crutch to replace seeking after him.

Consider the blind man, who had sinned that he should be blind from birth?  The answer was “No one”.  Not he, nor his parents, nor anyone else in his life.  His affliction was solely for the Glory of God.  What about our afflictions today?  Are they for the Glory of God?  Or are they just some annoyance to keep us from seeking after Him?