Standing Strong in Affliction

For weeks, I had been watching the leaves on a clustered trio of maple trees as they slowly came to life outside my window. Each morning, I eagerly checked their progress from tiny, sprouting buds to emerging baby leaves to, finally, exploding green fullness. What began as stark, bare branches stripped naked by winter became a glorious and welcoming canopy of green. Once the trees fully bloomed, the leaves seemed to dance while I worked each day.

But one morning, as I looked out at the tree expectantly, I saw something disturbing. Scattered all over the trees were hundreds of shriveled, black leaves mixed with the green ones. Overnight, they had gone from vibrant and verdant to black and possibly dying. My trees were stricken, and I felt stricken too.

The next day, a tree expert evaluated the situation for me. As it turned out, right at the very moment when the trees appeared to be in the best condition I had seen in over two decades, they had become infected with a fungus.

Sometimes, I feel like those trees.

I have experienced seasons I thought would be the most uncomplicated or joyful of my life, but instead, they brought afflictions, problems, illness, or conflict. Some of those challenges even threatened my spiritual health and vitality. I did not bear much fruit in those seasons, and many of the issues seemed to come out of nowhere.

In those times of unexpected troubles, my spirit often felt scorched, threatening to wither like those black leaves on my maple trees. My first line of defense, which was reflexively trying to rely on my own resources to withstand the troubles, never worked. I know this because of how many times I tried to endure and flourish independently of God and failed. I have pulled myself up by my bootstraps so often that the straps finally broke.

The Bible admonishes us to remain strong to the end and to stand firm in the faith. Doing so despite the inevitable fungi, attacks, and storms in life is not something we can do alone. Like my maple trees, we need help from outside of ourselves.

After the arborist examined the trees that spring day, he relayed the good news that they would take in what they needed to fight off and survive the fungal onslaught because of their healthy, deep roots. He told me they may not be pretty for a while but would rebound. It's the same for us.

One of the best ways to survive and thrive through pestilence and peril is by simply absorbing what has already been offered to us and taking it in more deeply to our core. Trees do this via osmosis and capillary action. One way humans can do this is through Biblical meditation.  

Psalm 1:1 says, "Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither…"

Standing firm in faith to the end and experiencing the fruit of the spirit is primarily made possible by sinking roots more and more deeply into the Bible. By thoughtfully, prayerfully studying its words in context, we begin to understand what God is actually saying rather than what we wish He were saying. In his book, Prayer, Tim Keller describes meditation as "taking the truth down into our hearts until it catches fire there and begins to melt and shape our reactions to God, ourselves, and the world." (p. 151)

Over the years, I have found it is easy to read the Bible and then forget its words, becoming swept up in the hectic business of life. Meditation is a practice that helps us slow down, process the words, ponder them throughout the day and night, and pray them. It is a critical link we often miss. It can help us connect reading the Bible with prayer, ultimately helping us to live out what we learn. Careful, thoughtful, informed meditation to gain a correct understanding of the Bible can make the difference between being hearers and doers.

We don't need to overcomplicate meditation (although there are many helpful methods). We do need a Bible or Bible app and maybe a pen and paper. We need to be able to put the passages we read into the context of the whole Bible, seeking to understand via questions. How we do it is not as important as actually doing it. Keller’s book offers an excellent overview of Biblically-centered meditation.

My practice of meditating on Scripture changes in different seasons. Lately, I have been reading a passage from the Old and New Testaments many mornings at breakfast and writing down some of it on an index card. Often, I dig deeper around the reading and into other parts of the Bible to understand the context more clearly. Sometimes, I look to outside sources, like Biblical commentaries (readily found online), to help me. Placing the card inside my phone's clear, protective case keeps it handy so I can ponder and pray about it throughout the day. In this simple yet effective way, my roots are reaching down further, soaking in God's gifts for health and flourishing no matter what the day brings.

Fighting off life's frequent fungi, afflictions, and storms can cause us to feel a little draggy, defeated, and discouraged in our souls. But these feelings may be more fleeting and less depleting if we regularly delight in God's word, walk in His ways, and meditate on His law, day and night. It’s like taking free nutrients and medicine from the soil to battle whatever ails us.

My maple trees will lose many of their leaves this summer. They will undoubtedly appear sad and droopy rather than lush and splendid for a time, but they will be okay. In the same way, afflictions and attacks may blacken our leaves and stop visible fruit from growing for a season, but we can trust that, as we continue to soak in God's word faithfully, He will use it to accomplish His healing work in the unseen places of our minds and souls.

Ultimately, meditating on the words of the Bible is meditating on Jesus Himself because He is the word of God in the flesh. And through Him, God not only saves us but gives us spiritual health, producing foliage that gently waves to the world, saying, "Look what God can do, even with such a poor and afflicted specimen as me."

Keller, Timothy. (2014). Prayer. New York, NY: Penguin Books.