This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
Is it?
I wonder how many of us can actually echo the words of the psalmist? Is my comfort in times of trouble really the life-giving promises of God, or do I look elsewhere to find rest? Furthermore, I wonder how many of us are willing to answer this question honestly? When your health fails, your spouse leaves you, your child dies, you lose your job, you are tempted, lonely, depressed, forgotten, down-trodden…do you really take comfort in God’s promise? Are you able to silence the voices of the outside world, the many voices offering quick and easy comforts? Are you able to retreat to God’s word and rest in your turmoil at the feet of God?
Are we really able to do this?
It is clear, I think, to those reading this post that “the answer is Jesus.” It always is. It always has been. It always will be. We know this. But, sometimes we get weary of the same, right answer. Sometimes we think something new awaits us around the corner or over the next hill. It’s not wrong to want something new, something different, something exciting to help us through our trials in life, is it?
Massive industries in this world have been set up for this singular purpose. Professional sports, exotic vacation packages, video games, romance novels, and cable TV with its many nonsense “reality shows” are all placed before us as a means of comfort in the troubled times of our life. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with most of these things, (well, maybe the romance novels are inherently evil…), when we rely on them for life-giving comfort we will eventually find ourselves empty, drawn thin, and unable to function as a normal human being.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Anything that does not give us life, steals it from us; this is true. But even so, we still reach for the glimmer of death instead of the light of light. I think this is what Christ meant when he told us of abundant life. I think he wanted us to know that only he could bring life to us in our darkest of days. Only he could comfort us in our affliction. Only he…not binge-watching, not the NBA, not environmental causes, not the political system, not our teddy bear, nothing. Only he.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
I originally thought the term “sojourning” meant merely a place to stay while traveling, and I was partly right. But it also has the connotation of being the place one stays for a lifetime. It implies, not merely a quick jaunt through the valley of the shadow of death, rather a marathon run through a seventy-plus year life of affliction. I think this is why I – why we – so often fail to rely on God’s life-giving promises. Anyone can lean on the eternal in a moment of intense emotion. Anyone can run a sprint (see this as evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOzCoDvRqyk) but it takes training, strength, and perseverance to run a marathon.
Life is a marathon and most of us drop out before the first mile has been completed. When life becomes tough to process, we rely on video games, man-caves, and liquid luck to get us through the struggles. But, I wonder what our lives would be like if we kept our feet on the track and our eyes looking forward? I wonder what a life dedicated to singing the songs of God would look like? I wonder how many of us have the fortitude to cling to the cross when everything around us calls for our attention?
None of us, actually. Left to our own devices we will always opt out of the long run. Left to our own devices we probably wouldn’t even finish the sprint. I mean, how many of us can say we have ever been able to see the right choice through all the way on our own? This is the supreme mystery of the Christian walk, (at least it is to me). It is the word of God (both written and in the flesh) that brings to us life, without which we can never make the right choices. Yet we are told to choose who we will serve. How can a horribly corrupt individual such as myself ever choose the life-giving word of God in the first place, and then choose the life-giving words?
This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
His promise gives me life. It is not my choice of his promise; it is not my ability to see the struggle through to the end; it is not my success or failure; it is none of these things. It is his promise alone, thankfully.
