Facing Suffering

 

Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. (Psalm 119:49-56 ESV).

 

As I have written in previous devotionals, we don’t know who wrote Psalm 119. Some people have suggested that maybe the prophet Daniel wrote it. If he did, the words in this section could have echoed his own life experiences. Filled with hatred, Daniel’s rivals mocked and scorned him. Daniel was a highly effective leader, and King Darius of Babylon put him in charge of one-third of the kingdom. But Daniel’s enemies hated him so much that they tricked the king into making a new law: whoever prayed to any god or person besides Darius the king would be thrown into the ­lions’ den. They did this because they knew Daniel prayed only to God and would never pray to Darius. Soon Daniel was seen praying to God, and he was thrown into the lions’ den at sundown the same day. All through that night, however, God protected Daniel, and his life was spared (cf. Daniel 6.). That long night certainly qualifies as “suffering.”

 

I would imagine that Daniel would have been very happy that he was not torn to pieces immediately, but he surely had to wonder how long that would remain. He surely had seen this cruelty exacted on others for their disobedience of the king’s rules. These words in our reading today provide a wonderful example for us in our own “lion’s den.” The psalmist’s suffering drives him deeper into God’s Word, and he meditates on it even as he waits sleeplessly through the night. It is within the promises of God that he finds comfort.

 

No one likes to suffer, but we can be encouraged in the truth that suffering can actually move us closer to God. As we meditate on God’s Word, we experience ever more deeply his love and the comfort of his promise to preserve us. After all, in the end, we know from the example of Jesus that suffering only brings us to our ultimate victory over this life of pain and suffering. We know what is waiting for us because of the resurrection of Jesus! That has a powerful affect in my life. I hope it will help you in whatever dark storm you may be walking through now.