Affliction: A Guide From God

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word” (Psalm 119:76)

A friend of mine and I have recently taken up a challenge from our pastor that we received just a few weeks ago. It was to pray for 20-30 minutes a day for the next three weeks and see what happened. We are trying, and as you all know, prayer is not easy or light work (shows the state of my heart). And we have not done really well. However, to encourage us to pray how God would have us pray, we have taken to praying through Psalm 119 to direct our prayers. Every verse has some mention of the word or law of God in it. So we use them as little jump starters for our prayers when we feel sluggish or confused.

This verse is no slouch. What a mental adjustment it is. Who among us has not found afflictions or hardships in his or her life? If you raise your hand you are a liar, unless you are comparing your afflictions to Jesus’ (in this comparative case, none of us have ever even tasted suffering).

Have you not even this week had struggles? Struggles with children, whether they be your children or your siblings; troubles at work—strife with boss, bickering with co-workers. How about relationship struggles? I have heard of those. I can be a crumby relater, so I have trouble and create trouble it seems fairly often. Some of you might even have troubles for good reasons. You overhear a conversation that is demeaning to women, or someone speaks Jesus’ name with disdain—and you act creating tension. That is affliction. What of arthritis or other constant pains? I believe that most of my troubles are self-caused (usually laziness), but God does choose to use non-sin suffering in our lives too.

What a good thing troubles are! You say “whoah, take it easy. That is not something to get excited about.” But the Bible says it is. If this verse is true of you, do you not have good reason to be excited in suffering? If you would have only ever gone astray and wandered away from God, would you be glad of no affliction? I dare say you wouldn’t. Being good and being painful are not mutually exclusive. Rather, in Christianity, they are often the same exact path.

How would you be if God did not let suffering into your life? How would I be? I know I would have continued on growing bolder in sin and ignorant self-confidence if He had not used good pain to humble me. Without pain His patience is taken for granted and only used to sin it up. But with pain we realize simple truths at times—that we are not all-powerful, independent in any real sense, or successful at just being humans. Yes, afflictions teach us truths. Get it through your system, our lives are a vapor. Be taught by affliction.

God, the Good, the greatly-Good, uses it for your good. Take your good lesson and let’s go along with the psalmist, who, being changed by troubles, learned to stay on the narrow path and keep his Master’s word.