Good Affliction

Psalm 119:67,71

afflicted - distressed so severely as to cause persistent suffering or anguish.

Nobody likes to be afflicted.  It is not pleasant, fun or enjoyable…there is nothing about affliction that would make one say, “Oh boy, I hope to be afflicted today!”  No sane person desires to be “distressed…severely,” to experience “persistent suffering or anguish.”  It is something we avoid at all costs, if at all possible.

But that’s the point.  Affliction cannot always be avoided.  Sometimes it’s necessary.  And sometimes, it is a tool God uses for our good.  Read these verses from Psalm 119:

67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.

71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn Your statutes.

Psalm 119 expresses the psalmist’s delight in God’s Word…it is a psalm of praise and adoration for the Bible.  But in this section of the psalm, the subject turns to affliction.

The writer admits he experienced a wilder time in his life.  At some point he “went astray.”  Many probably have done similar.  Thank God that He doesn’t quit, or turn His back on us, when we do!  Instead, He loves us through it…sometimes using affliction.

Obviously, the affliction the psalmist endured brought good into the his life.  Affliction turned him around…brought him back to God’s Word.  So the end result of the severe distress that caused “persistent suffering or anguish,” was, in his own words: “good for me.”

How could affliction possibly be good?

For the psalmist, it caused him to pause on the path he was traveling.  If affliction stops us in our tracks; if it turns us back to God; if it encourages us to pick up His Word, to read it and apply it in our life…then affliction indeed has done a good and powerful work.

Are you experiencing affliction?

Look at your life carefully.  Might there be something amiss; might God be using this experience to draw you back to Him?  If there is something wrong, repent.  Pick up His Word again.  Read it; study it; let it speak to you.  Pray.  Spend time with the Lord.

May your testimony in the future be, as it was for the psalmist: “I went astray…but God allowed affliction to get my attention.  Because of that severely distressing time I no longer go astray, and I know and follow the Bible better than ever before.  So yes, for me affliction was good!”