The writer of Psalm 119 had a taste for transformation. He knew that life is all about growth. Living things grow. If you are not growing you may have become disconnected from the source of your life: God. Walking with God is a constant growth process. God is less interested in your comfort at any given point than your growth. He is more likely then, to lead you to circumstances that will grow you than to circumstances that will give you pleasure or comfort. We often pray that God will deliver us from circumstances that stretch us and bring out the worst in us. But these are also the kinds of circumstances that cause us to grow. So, if God doesn’t deliver you from these circumstances understand that he may have your best interests in mind. It is best for you that you grow, not to remain comfortably where you already are. This does not mean that we should accept every difficult circumstance as though God were the direct cause of everything bad that happens. No, there is much about the world that grieves God. However, God is sovereign over all the mess and will use every circumstance to make us stronger. It is in the wake of this kind of experience that the psalmist can say, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees”. Affliction is not good in itself, but it can be good for us, if we are responding to God in the midst of it.
Ask God to make clear what he wants to teach you in your current circumstance.
Read Psalm 119:65-72
