A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to Him, crying out,
"Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession!"
Matthew 15:22
We see here, that affliction sometimes proves a blessing to a person's soul.
This Caananite mother no doubt had been severely tried. She had seen her darling child vexed with a devil, and been unable to relieve her. But yet that trouble brought her to Christ, and taught her to pray. Without it she might have lived and died in careless ignorance, and never seen Jesus at all. Surely it was good for her that she was afflicted. (Psalm 119:71)
Let us mark this well. There is nothing which shows our ignorance so much as our impatience under trouble. We forget that every trial is a message from God—and intended to do us good in the end. Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.
Health is a good thing. But sickness is far better, if it leads us to God.
Prosperity is a great mercy. But adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ.
Anything, anything is better than living in carelessness, and dying in sin. Better a thousand times be afflicted, like the Canaanite mother, and like her, flee to Christ; than live at ease, like the rich "fool," and die at last without Christ and without hope.
~ by J. C. Ryle, "The Gospel of Matthew" ~ 1856
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