This was originally written as a pastoral passage for LRBC for September 27, 2026
In my reading lately I have been challenged by the example of J. C. Ryle (1816–1900). Ryle would become a leading evangelical leader among British evangelicals and the first ever bishop of Liverpool, and is best known today for his books such as Expository Thoughts on the Gospels and Holiness (which I have written about HERE). But the anecdote I share comes from his early life, recounted in his recently discovered autobiography, written for his children when he was 57.
Ryle had been born into a wealthy upper class English family, and as the eldest son expected to inherit his father’s wealth, title, and estate in Cheshire. However, his family’s wealth vanished during a bank collapse when he was aged 25. Everything he took for granted in his earthly life was no more. He recounted that “I was deeply wounded by my reverses, suffered deeply under them, and I do not think I have ever recovered in body or mind from the effect of them” (p. 92). But he had recently been born again into a living faith in Jesus and he later credited that for the fact that he did not take his own life at that time.
Because of his reversal of fortunes Ryle found himself needing to earn a living. He ended up entering ministry as an Anglican minister, and reluctantly so, but for the fact that he could see “no other course of life open to me”!, p. 98. He relocated several times in his early years in ministry, and a recurring theme of his life in his late twenties was that of constant and bitter poverty. This was something he felt even more acutely because of his upbringing.
Here is his reflection on that time:
“In closing the chapter I wish to make one general remark. I believe that God never expects us to feel no suffering or pain when it pleases Him to visit us with affliction. There are great mistakes upon this point. Submission to God’s will is perfectly compatible with intense and keen suffering under the chastisements of that will. Troubles in fact not felt, are not troubles at all. To feel trouble deeply, and yet submit to patiently is that which is required of Christian. A man may submit cheerfully to a severe surgical operation, in the full belief that it is his duty to submit, and that the operation is the likeliest way to secure health. But it does not follow that he does not feel the operation most keenly, even at the moment he is most submissive. It was a wise saying of holy (Richard) Baxter when he was dying of a painful disease, ‘I groan, I do not grumble’.”
“I ask my children and anyone who may read this Autobiography not to forget this. I ask them to remember that I felt most acutely my father’s ruin, my exile from Cheshire (the family mansion) for the destruction of all my worldly prospects, and I have never ceased to feel them from that day to this; but I would have them know, that I was submissive to God’s will, and had a firm and deep conviction that all was right, though I could not see it, and feel it at the time” (pp. 94–95).
Groan, but do not Grumble. God is good and God is wise, but he does not show us all his plans. Grumbling embitters us in our spirit and makes us other from what God would have us to be. Painful though they are, these are occasions to grow in grace and godliness. While they are upon us, we don’t have to enjoy them, but it is wise not to waste them.
