John Piper on Suffering from Charles Simeon

At seventy-one, Charles Simeon was asked by his friend Joseph Gurney how he had endured so much persecution and outlasted all the opposition of his forty-nine-year pastorate at Holy Trinity in Cambridge. He answered:

My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory. (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, [London: Inter-Varsity, 1948], 155f.)

That’s the perspective of seasoned suffering: Forty-nine years of trials is called “a little suffering.” And the entrance into final victory, he says, will be “soon.” In the meantime, we must not mind these troubles. We will accept each pleasant moment with gratitude. But we will not use it to argue that the next moment should also be pleasant.