RR. The Good that Suffering Can Bring

What can still grow in your life after you’ve been hurt? John Ortberg explores that question through a story author James Michener remembered from childhood: an aging apple tree, eight rusty nails, and an unexpected harvest.

Years later, after heart surgery and other painful health challenges, Michener returned to that image. He resolved to keep bearing fruit. John connects his story with the poetry of John Milton and the lives of Hank and Jan, a couple whose faithful care for one another became a powerful expression of love.

John does not try to explain away suffering. He invites us to consider what love can still look like within it: noticing someone who feels invisible, offering help, caring for a loved one, or doing our ordinary work with God.

The episode closes at the cross, where nails hammered into a tree become part of the Christian story of self-giving love. Your wounds matter. What might God help you grow from here?

Scripture connections: Matthew 25:14–30; John 15:4–5, 12–13


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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

We live in a world that tempts us to think that the goal of life is just avoid suffering. But it's not. The goal of life is to offer my life in self-giving love. I promise you, when you get to the end of your little life and I get to the end of mine, my primary memory, the meaning of it all will not be how much pain that I bear, it will be how much fruit that I bear. How much love, enjoy, care for other people. I don't know why we suffer. I don't know why. But I know the meaning, the redemption of suffering is in any life, it can increase the capacity to love. And so I want to tell you about the lesson of the nails. This comes by way of James Mishner. You might know him. He was one of the most prolific authors in the 20th century. Wrote 75, he sold 75 million books, won a Pulitzer Prize. He was a man of faith. He was a Quaker. And uh towards the end of his life, when he wrote his memoirs, he explained what prompted him to write. I had been impelled to attempt this project, his memoirs, he says, because of an experience that occurred 80 years ago when I was a country lad at five, and it was of such powerful import that the memory of it has never left me. The farmer living at the end of our lane had an aging apple tree that had once been abundantly productive, but had now lost its energy and ability to bear any fruit at all. The farmer, on an early spring day I still remembered, hammered eight nails long and rusty into the trunk of the tree. Four were knocked in close to the ground on four different sides of the trunk, four higher up and well spaced about their circumference. That autumn a miracle happened. The tired old tree, having been goaded back to life, produced a bumper crop of juicy red apples, bigger and better than we had seen before. When I asked how this had happened, the farmer explained, hammering in the rusty nails gave it a shock to remind it that its job is to produce apples. Was it important that the nails were rusty? Maybe the mineral in the nail made it easier to digest. Was eight important? If you're going to send a message, be sure it's heard. Could you do the same next year? A substantial Joel lasts about ten years. Then by that time we both may be finished, he said. But I was unable to verify this prediction, for by that time our family had moved away from the lane. And then Misshner goes on. In the 1980s, when I was nearly 80 years old, I had some fairly large rusty nails hammered into my trunk. A quintumple bypass, heart surgery, a new left hip, a dental rebuilding, an attack of permanent vertigo. And like a sensible apple tree, I resolved to resume bearing fruit. John Milton, of course, was a Puritan poet and writer. He was blind. Interestingly, Eleanor Stump writes about John Milton in the book that we're going to be looking at through this series, Wandering in Darkness. Mill's hard desire was to be a political bureaucrat for Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. When Cromwell was driven out of power, Milton was left destitute, impoverished, under house arrest, searched for, to be imprisoned. And it was in those years that he wrote his greatest poetry, Paradise Lost, A Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes. She says, his greatest flourishing came with his greatest suffering, the lesson of the nails, so strange. And his words, centuries later, inspired James Mitchner. Milton wrote, When I consider how my light is spent, or half my days in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide, this story in turn, this poem is inspired by the parable of talents, and that one talent which is death to hide lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve there with my maker, and present my true account, lest he returning, chide. Those words, Mitchner said, My soul more bent to serve there with my maker and present my true account. And this drove him so much that Mitchner, between the ages of eighty and eighty-five, wrote eleven books for crying out loud. He says, Why did I do this? Because I was afraid of dying. No. The job of an apple tree is to produce apples, the job of a fruit tree is to produce fruit. I have a job. I am a pastor and a husband and a father and a preacher and a storyteller and a father and a grandfather. And I have had some rusty nails hammered into my trunk in this last season. And they are not the end of my story. I am a steward of those wounds as well. And so I wanted to tell you the lesson of the nails. I don't know why it is, I don't know how it is that it happens, but uh you have a job, you have a purpose on this earth, and I promise you, when you get to the end of it, your primary memory, the primary meaning of your life, no matter how great your suffering, and I don't mean to minimize it or or try to explain it or rationalize it at all, but what will mean the most to you is the fruit that you bore. When the nails have done their hard and painful work. For it is in the bearing of fruit, in noticing a child that nobody else notices, or drawing a tear, or giving a gift to another person that can make a difference in their life, or fixing the car for a single mom who couldn't afford to get it repaired herself, or sponsoring a child, or beginning to care for folks in some other part of the world, or just doing your job, whatever your job is, raising a child, telling a story, picking fruit, being a plumber, being a computer programmer, being a teacher, being a healer, whatever it is to do that job together with God, something you are stepping into a reality, and you will grow and you will bear fruit that is beyond your capacity. When I served at my last church, there was a couple there, Hank and Jan, and I love to talk about them. Hank was a remarkably gifted guy, very successful business guy, and it was clear that was how he was going to make his mark on the world. But when she was 40, Jan was diagnosed with a very debilitating disease, and it just kept getting worse. And she ended up in a wheelchair, and Hank ended up quitting his job to devote himself to caring for her. That did not look like much of an orchard. But I will tell you, people were more inspired by that couple and their love and sacrifice for one another than they would have been inspired by all kinds of you know grandiose achievements. On Saturdays at five o'clock when they were in town, they would be there and Hank would wheel Jan in and she would be in a wheelchair, not able to respond very much. But his care for her and her love for him were so remarkable. They bought a house in Hawaii because that was one place that Jan was able to enjoy, and they were very generous. And and Hank uh asked me, you know, we'd love for the staff at the church to enjoy this house. We're not using it. Would that be okay? And I said, Well, Nance and I will need to go there and investigate. And we did, and it was a wonderful, wonderful gift. Hank's prayer was that he would be able to outlive Jan so that he could care for her and her need as long as she lived. Forty-nine years after she was diagnosed, she was 89 years old. She died two days later, Hank died at the age of 90. The lesson of the nails. It is a strange thing. Uh uh Barbara Brown Taylor writes about this that the world's religions, uh Buddhism, Islam, uh Judaism with the pain of uh Israel in slavery in Egypt, and of course, Christianity, and Christianity especially at the cross, are born out of pain. Ironic it is that today, uh, the most widely recognized symbol in all of human history, it adorns more graves and more jewelry, is a man on a cross, nails, hammered into a tree, and it still bears fruit.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I know many of you who are joining today are walking through or have walked through deep waters, suffering in one way or another, waiting on God in one way or another. And I just hope that you know that we are here for you. We're here to encourage you every day with these teachings, but also to pray for you, to spend sincere time praying for you. So if you have a prayer request, just know that you're not alone and that we would love to pray for you. You can text us your prayer request at our number 51504. At Become New, we distribute 10 minutes of teaching just like this from Dr. John Orperg every weekday to give you a fresh and encouraging perspective on life in the kingdom of God, to take a scripture with you into your day that you can meditate on and mull over in your mind. And to give you a practice, something you can take with you. And so the practice today, my encouragement to you today, is to reach out for prayer. There is nothing too large or too small that does not concern God. He cares about you and he cares about everything you care about. He may not see it the same way we do, but he cares. We'd love to pray for you. If you're interested in finding out more, you can head over to become new.com. Make sure you never miss an episode. Just text the word new to that same number, 51504. I'm so glad you're here. Be encouraged.