21 Days of Prayer in Psalm 119 (Day #9)

Read Psalm 119:65-72

     “Affliction”

It seems odd to me that in a stanza focused on affliction, the psalmist’s opening line is “You have dealt well with your servant” (v.65). Contrary to our culture of comfort and satisfaction, and our prayers for both to continue, the psalmist confesses that the affliction he had received was part of the Lord’s dealing well with him. He desires to learn “good judgment and knowledge” (v.66) but there are some lessons that we seem to only learn through affliction.

Two verses, in particular, 67 and 71, confess to the Lord and speak to us of the up-side of affliction,

⁶⁷ Before I was afflicted I went astray,
    but now I keep your word…

⁷¹ It is good for me that I was afflicted,
    that I might learn your statutes.

Perhaps we can say the same thing. There was something difficult that happened in my life. It wasn’t enjoyable or easy. In fact, it has had a lasting negative effect on my lifestyle. However, this affliction has taught me to trust the Lord as never before. I can confess that I am glad it happened for what I have learned and done as a result, not because I liked it.

The Bible often speaks of the discipline of the Lord being proof of his love (e.g., Deut. 8:5-6; Job 5:17; Psa. 94:12; Prov. 3:11-12; Heb. 12:3-13; Rev. 3:19). We don’t normally discipline someone else’s kids, so when God disciplines us it is evidence of his love. Will we get defensive and go our own way regardless or learn the lessons of which the furnace and the flood must teach us?

“For the moment all discipline seems painful

                                         rather than pleasant,

                          but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness

to those who have been trained by it.” (Heb. 12:11)

Even Jesus learned to obey through suffering (Heb. 5:8), so who am I to demand an easier way?

O Lord, you are loving and merciful even when you afflict your children. All good and perfect gifts come from you (James 1:17), even the discipline that we so desperately need though we kick and cry and moan about it. Thank you, Jesus, that you don’t ask us to do anything that you didn’t first do yourself and that you loved us enough to not give us everything we ask for. I pray that our hearts would long to be trained by your word and bring pleasure to you along the way, yet I recognize our utter dependence upon your gift of grace to do so. 

Psalm 141 "Just Slap Me!"

Psalm for Today = 141:5, 9

   Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
    let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
    let my head not refuse it.
Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds…

Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me
    and from the snares of evildoers!

Comments:

Almost every time I have commented on this Psalm, I have written about verses 3-4, which talk about God setting a guard over our mouths. I will not talk about that this time. Instead, let’s look at verse 5, which is not as well-received in our culture today. We don’t like to be corrected, much less actually disciplined, yet the wise man is teachable and correctable. As v. 5 states, 

“Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness”: Will we respond to righteous discipline as actually being a kindness shown to us that will save us from more pain and misery later, or will we stiffen our neck and fight back?

“Let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head”: this is a parallel line to the previous. Rebuke is like the oil that was put on the head of the guest when he arrives after a long dusty walk—“let  my head not refuse it.”

 

At the same time that the psalmist was being taught by the loving rebuke of the righteous, he was praying against the works and words of the evildoers. This is not only a cry for justice and deliverance but a tacit acknowledgment that the psalmist knows he needs God’s help to hinder evil deeds, and that he is compassionate towards those upon whom the evil deeds might fall.

What we so often fail to see is that the elements of verse 5 are necessary for the prayer of verse 9 to be answered.

 

If we won’t be disciplined and learn from the gentle rebuke of righteous men and women, then we have no hope of avoiding the snares and traps of the evildoer. Proverbs 12:1 says,

“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”

 

And in the New Testament, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear that discipline of the Lord is a sign that God loves us.

^"And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
    nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Hebrews 12:5-7)

 

If we don’t pray against evil deeds, we are either arrogant in our self-regard, or without compassion for those at risk, or maybe both—Heaven forbid! As it is written,

 

 “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:18-20)

Psalm 129 "Plowed & Pierced"

Psalm for Today = 129:1-4
¹ “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth”—

    let Israel now say—

² “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,

    yet they have not prevailed against me.

Plowed field in Israel

³ The plowers plowed upon my back;

    they made long their furrows.”

⁴ The Lord is righteous;

    he has cut the cords of the wicked.

Comments:

I commented on the imprecation in verses 5-6 the last two times through the book, so I will focus today on the testimony in verses 1-4. 

The psalmist is referring to the national history of Israel, how they had been afflicted from the very beginning. If we were to go through the Bible and list the various nations that had afflicted Israel through the centuries, it would be a pretty long list. How many can you name? I came up with more than a dozen off the top of my head.

His repetitive line, “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth”, is iterated for emphasis, almost like rocking a stuck car to get it out of the snow or sand. Note that within these verses, he is also weaving in the role of the individual (me/my) within the community of faith (“let Israel say”).

What is the testimony that needs to be repeated? The righteous Yahweh delivered them by cutting off the yoke of their enemies. Yahweh is righteous; he keeps his promises. He had let Israel know ahead of time that if they turned away from him that he would use the other nations to discipline them, but if they turned and prayed to him, he would deliver them. This psalm is a testimony to God’s two-fold faithfulness to his promise — by discipline and deliverance.

 

How was this deliverance possible? It is by the stripes on Jesus' back and the holes in his body that I am set free from the bondage of my sin. As it is written in Isaiah 53:4-6,

"Surely he has borne our griefs

    and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

    smitten by God, and afflicted.

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;

    we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

    the iniquity of us all."

Questions:

• So are we following the Lord wholeheartedly today, or are we in danger of his loving discipline?
• When we look back on our lives, do we remember both the difficult and the delightful, or have we forgotten the faithful times of God's deliverance?