[rating:5.0]
(Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2002 [originally published in 1737])
159 pgs
I found this book to be a thought-provoking, inspiring read. I enjoy reading Puritan authors. They have a way of digging deep into practical subjects and bringing the weight of biblical testimony to help readers understand issues common to the human experience. This book is a classic in this regard.
The Crook in the Lot is an intriguing title and one that, at first glance, seems so antiquarian as to be of no use to modern Christians. The “lot” refers to our condition or lot in life. Since Puritans were generally Calvinist in outlook, they assumed that their condition in life, for good or ill, was the direct result of God’s sovereign will. The “crook” is the crooked parts of life. These are the discomforts, pains, trials, and tribulations. If a trouble-free life is perfectly straight, the “crook” is the disagreeable portions of our life that go contrary to what we would desire. Job’s life was going splendidly for a time. He was enormously wealthy and he had delightful, carefree children. Then God allowed a “crook” into his life!
Thomas Boston was splendidly qualified to explore the reason why a loving, all-powerful God should allow crooks into the lives of His beloved children. He served as a minister in the Church of Scotland. His wife had paralyzing bouts of depression. Boston himself suffered painful kidney stones. He died at age 56. His friends ultimately completed the work he had begun and published it in 1737.
Boston, like a good Puritan thinker, takes a primary verse of Scripture and digs deep into it. In this case it is Ecclesiastes 7:13: “Consider the work of God; for who can make that straight which God hath made crooked?” Boston takes the essential Puritan view that human affairs are determined by Providence. If our lives experience trials, it is ultimately because God determined that we should. That then raises the difficult question: If God loves me and He is all-powerful, why would He allow me and my family to suffer grievous trials? The book sets out to answer this question. Further, Boston deals with the issue of how we should respond to difficult circumstances.
I will not try and lay out all of Boston’s arguments. Rather, I’ll give you a sampling of his thinking and approach. He begins by declaring: “As to the crook in the lot, God hath made it so, and it must continue while He will have it so. Should you ply your utmost force to even it, or make it straight, your attempt will be in vain . . . only He who made it can mend it, or make it straight” (19). Further, he notes: “Wherefore, the greatest crook of the lot on earth, is straight in heaven: there is no disagreeableness there. But in every person’s lot there is a crook in respect of their mind and natural inclination” (24).
Boston’s point is that everyone has a crook of some degree in their life, due to sin. Some crooks are severe and last a lifetime. Others are much more mild and can dissipate when God’s purposes have been accomplished. Boston’s counsel is not to focus on the crook, for it can only make us bitter and cause is to miss the divine work for which it is intended (25). Boston notes that crooks come in many forms. They might occur with our health, or in relationships, or in our finances. He cautions that often we find our greatest cross where we expected our greatest comfort (32).
God uses crooks in our lives for various reasons. It might be to reprove sin, or to correct us, or to prevent sin (42-45). Boston offers hope: “Let them know that there is no crook in their lot but may be made straight, for God made it, surely then he can mend it. He himself can make straight what He hath made crooked, though none other can” (52). Boston encourages people to trust in God’s wisdom and timing. If He chooses to allow the crook to remain in our life, He must have a divine purpose. He notes: “There are many now in heaven, who are blessing God for the crook they had in their lot here” (56). Boston concedes that it is not sinful to seek to address your crook, if you do not use sinful means and if you keep your focus on God (58). He concedes, however, that “God’s time . . . is seldom as early as ours” (59). He cautions: “Fruits thus too hastily plucked off the tree of providence can hardly miss to set the teeth on edge and will certainly be bitter to the gracious soul” (62). He urges people to trust in God’s wisdom and not to be too hasty in seeking the removal of their crook before God’s work is fully done. He suggests: “What is not to be cured must be endured, and should be with Christian resignation” (69).
One of the primary reasons God allows crooks in our lot is to teach us humility and to free us of pride. Yet despite lowering our circumstances, we may not choose for our spirit of pride to be broken. He notes: “Many a high spirit keeps up in spite of lowering circumstances” (84).
Boston suggests that righteous people will be reluctant to cut the work of God short in their lives, however painful it might be, while the unrighteous will believe that their discomfort should end immediately (89). He also makes the interesting observation that the pride of a person’s heart will subject them to greater crosses than will the humility of a humble spirit (90). Pride leads to humiliations that a humble person would not even notice.
Boston suggests: “Let all the afflictions in the world attend the humble spirit, and all the prosperity in the world attend pride, humility will still have the better: as gold in a dunghill is more excellent than so much lead in the cabinet” (93). Boston makes this keen observation: “What therefore betters the man is preferable to what betters only his condition” (97). He also observes: “The subduing of our passion is more excellent than to have the whole world subdued to our will: for then we are masters of ourselves (Luke 21:19)” (98).
Much of the work of crooks in our lot is for the suppression of our pride. Boston notes: “bringing down our spirit is our duty, raising it up is God’s work” (105). He also observes that God may bring down our lot, but only we can voluntarily bring down our spirit (113). That is, God can bring us into humble circumstances, but only we can choose to humble ourselves in the midst of our circumstances. That is why there will be fierce pride among the residents of hell. Even the most humiliating circumstances cannot crush a prideful spirit unwilling to bend.
Boston concedes that at times, we cannot see the wisdom of our crook. Yet, he cautions that “if at any time you cannot see that need, believe it on the ground of God’s infinite wisdom, that does nothing in vain” (120). Boston also offers hope that even if we should never be freed in this life from our crook, still we have heaven to look forward to in which God makes all things straight. He declares: “I would ask you, is it nothing to you to stand a candidate for glory to be put on trial for heaven?” (122). He adds, “What a vast disproportion is there between your trials and the future glory! Your most humbling circumstances, how light are they in comparison to the weight of it! (122). Much of our suffering on earth is but our being made ready for heaven. Yet Boston argues that many insist on ease on earth in preparation for glorious comfort in heaven. He asks: “Pray, how do you think you are made meet for heaven, by the warm sunshine of this world’s ease, and getting all you will there?” (123).
Boston also urges readers not to be in too great of a hurry to be done with God’s work in their lives. He notes: “Humbling work is long work” (128). He adds: “A few days might have taken Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, but they would have been too soon there” (130).
Boston adds, “That is the pattern Providence copies after in its conduct towards you. The Father was so well pleased with His method in the way of His own Son, that it was determined to be followed, and copied over again in the case of all the heirs of glory” (134). Boston notes that if the Father, in His infinite love for His Son, chose a crook, then surely we should expect no less.
Boston notes: “God gives worldly men their stock here, but His children get nothing but a sample of theirs here” (144). He adds, that when we look back upon our troubles on earth from the viewpoint of heaven, we will declare, “He hath done all things well!” (146). Concerning God’s promises, Boston acknowledges that we must at times wait long for them to come to pass. Yet he notes: When God pays His bonds of promises, he pays both principal and interest together, the mercy is increased according to the time they waited” (147).
Incredibly, perhaps, Boston suggests: “There is not a child of God but would, with the utmost earnestness protest against a lifting up before due time, as against an unripe fruit cast to him by an angry father which would set his teeth on edge” (149). The true child of God is also differentiated from an unbeliever by the way he handles adversity. Boston notes: “. . . there is readily a greater keenness to vindicate our honor from the imputation the humbling circumstances seem to lay upon it, than to vindicate the honor of God in the justice and equity of the dispensation” (152). Pride will cause people to protest their innocence, as Job did, when evil befalls them. Humility will ardently protest God’s righteousness instead.
One area I disagreed with Boston is in his contention that Christians carry the memory of their trials with them to heaven so that heaven is all the sweeter. He cites the example of the rich man and Lazarus, pointing out that the rich man in hell remembers his brothers left behind (157). However, it is the rich man in hell who remembers his life on earth, not Lazarus. I would contend that it will be our memory that will make hell all the more bitter, while heaven would not truly be heaven if we still remembered those on earth who did not join us.
I appreciated this book because Boston had the courage to take on one of the most controversial topics of theology: why do good people suffer? Boston goes deeper and deeper in his discussion and draws in many wonderful Scriptures along the way. Boston uses Scripture in such a way that he makes you want to look up those same verses while making you wonder why you have never seen what he so clearly makes clear in the text. His Eighteenth Century English may make for slow reading for some, nevertheless, it also forces the reader to go more slowly, which considering the depth of the writing, is a good thing.
If you are not accustomed to reading from the Puritans, this is a great entry point for you. I strongly recommend this book. It is a work that ought to be on every Christian’s bookshelf.
by Richard Blackaby