Ps 119:71-72: It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn Your statutes. Instruction from Your lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. [HCSB]
Wow. It was good for me to be afflicted? Did the psalmist understand what the meaning of the word afflicted is? Troubled. Distressed. Stricken. Hurt. Tormented. What can possibly be good about that?
I have often talked to people who are enduring a time of trial and testing. There have also been those times in my own life. The reaction to these times is often to be focused on “why” they are happening. What is more important is that we instead ask God what He wants us to learn through them.
The psalmist said that his affliction was a good thing in the sense that he learned more about God. Learning in the midst of affliction is not easy; it may be the most difficult thing we do in life. Yet if we find God in the midst of it in greater measure than we ever have before, it can be the most rewarding of experiences.
What did the psalmist learn about God in his affliction? He’s quite clear, he learned that God was more precious to him than “thousands of pieces of silver and gold.”
We sing a chorus that expresses that thought …. Lord, You are more precious than silver. Lord, You are more costly than gold. Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing I desire compares with You.
Sometimes it is in the midst of the fire’s crucible that we learn that nothing compares with knowing Him.