A Word in Season: The Good in Affliction (Psalm 119:71)

I don't think I know anybody who would say that they enjoy being afflicted. Affliction is painful, it's difficult, sometimes it's absolutely bewildering and crushing. And yet the psalmist in Psalm 119 and verse 71 can say, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.

Now the language of affliction there is weighty language. It's being bowed down, it's something that humbles us and brings us, perhaps we might say, to the dust. There are many things that do that. There are circumstances into which we go that humble us.

There are people with whom we have to deal who humble us. Some of them do it with the best of intentions, some of them with the worst of intentions, but still it brings us down. There are afflictions in our bodies, afflictions in our minds.

There are times when we're brought low in spirit. And this man says, It was good that that has happened to me. Now what enables him to have that perspective? Well, first of all, I think we have to say that he is looking beyond the immediate moment of suffering.

He's not talking about the affliction in itself, but the consequences or effects of that humbling, that being brought down. He is expressing and explaining the fact that there was something better that came out of that.

Perhaps there was some sinful pattern of thought or behavior that was exposed or crushed on account of that. Perhaps, as he says, he learned something about the statutes of God. That's perhaps either a particular insight into God's word or it's a practical grasp upon it.

He sees things in the truth of God. He understands better the limits and the boundaries that God sets for the righteous course because he has been afflicted. Affliction was the environment perhaps in which he proved or demonstrated or advanced in obedience.

As he clung to the Lord and walked in his ways, despite the afflictions and distresses that he underwent, he was demonstrating more and more his righteousness. There may be at least something in that of what was said concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered, that as he went on in his course and as more and more pressure was brought to bear upon him, so he went on proving his commitment to the Lord God.

What then is the good that affliction works in men and women like us? Well, perhaps it's first of all what brings us to God. It's good if it weans us off our sin, if it exposes pride, our arrogance or our ignorance, if it teaches us our own limitations in order that we might come to the Lord God in order to be instructed.

It's good for us, once we're Christians, that there may be things that we learn in the school of affliction that we would never learn in the school of pleasure and delight. That's not to say there aren't lessons to be learned in there, but it may have a little bit to do with what Charles Spurgeon once said, that really the only thing more blessed than health is sickness.

Now, again, we're not saying that these are things that we desire or pursue, but we recognize that God, like a loving father, disciplines his children. There's a heavenly chastisement whereby God brings certain things to bear upon us that are not pleasant at the present time, but are profitable ultimately for us.

There's a scouring off, if you will, of some of the filth. There's a chiseling off of some of the rough edges. Sometimes there's the penetrating cut that takes out something that doesn't belong and that is sickening the whole.

Now, you know, if you've had any experience of this, I know at least in some measure that these are exceedingly painful on occasions. There are times when we're feeling utterly undone. And yet, if the hand of God is in these things to bring us to himself and to train us for himself, then there will come a time when we can look back and say with real sincerity and humility, it is good for me that I have been afflicted.

And that will help us when other afflictions come to say in the midst of them, not this is great, I'm enjoying this, but this I know is good for me. This will produce good fruit in me. From this I will learn the statutes of a holy and gracious God.