It Is Good for Me That I Have Been Afflicted

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can spend a long time avoiding the hard chapter that is already in your story. You wish it had not happened. You replay alternate versions where it did not. But somewhere underneath, you are aware that the version of you who came out the other side of that affliction is steadier, truer, more honest than the version who never went through it. You do not need to glorify the suffering. You need the courage to say what this passage says: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes." The affliction did not waste you. It taught you.

This section starts with a recognition of God's actual goodness in the writer's life: "You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed Your commandments." Not "deal well with me" — "You have." Past tense. He is naming history. Then comes the line most of us cannot say without flinching: "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word." That is a hard sentence. It admits that drift was the natural state, and affliction was the thing that pulled him back. Then the simplest possible declaration: "You are good, and do good; teach me Your statutes." That two-clause sentence is the bedrock of the whole prayer. He is good. He does good. Even when it does not look good in real time. He names the opposition right alongside it: "The proud have forged a lie against me; with my whole heart I will keep Your precepts. Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in Your law." Different diet, different shape. The line at the close is the one that titles this section: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver." He does not say "I am glad it happened." He says "it was good for me." That is mature retrospection. The affliction was a teacher, not a friend — and the lesson was worth more than wealth.

• Right now, name one chapter of affliction in your life — and follow it with: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes." • Write this down: "What did the affliction teach me that I would not have learned otherwise?" • Repeat this line when shame about the hard chapter rises: "You are good, and do good; teach me Your statutes."

Stop. Breathe. Let the hard chapter come into the open as a teacher, then tell Him exactly what He taught you in it — out loud if you can.

God, You have dealt well with Your servant, even in the chapters I would not have chosen. Before I was afflicted I went astray, and I do not want to pretend that was not true. Teach me good judgment and knowledge — including the kind that only comes after suffering. Your law is better to me than thousands of gold and silver, and I want to live like I believe that. You are good, and do good. Even when it did not look like it in real time. You're still my Shepherd.

It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might learn His statutes.