Passage Read: Psalm 19-22
Meditation Verses: 22:19-22
Thought
This is so clearly about Jesus on the cross. He asks for deliverance from the sword, from the dog's power, from the lion's mouth. And we know He doesn't receive deliverance, at least not in the sense we naturally hope for. He doesn't survive the cross, but dies and is buried. But He then rises to life again on the third day, and then He testifies of the Lord's victory and praises Him among His brothers. Deliverance from trouble isn't always an overthrowing of the trouble that comes on us. Sometimes it is successfully enduring to the end without sin and without turning our back on God. Sometimes victory is our death, and afterward we can and will rejoice in the Lord and praise His name.
Application
The victory I want is deliverance from any and all trouble, so that my life is always peaceful and without difficulty. The victory God wants is that I learn to trust and honor and obey Him in all things, especially the hard things. That victory can look like defeat at the hands of some difficulty; the difficulty robs me of everything. But because I remain faithful to the Lord, because I continue to trust Him all the way through the disaster, because I continue to obey His commands even though they may be the real cause of my trouble, then I discover the real victory, and I see that even death cannot stop the Lord from rewarding and honoring me. If death is not defeat for me, then how can any other trouble that comes on me as I work to honor and obey the Lord be counted as defeat for me? I must not fear trouble, but fear turning away from the Lord in some form of unfaithfulness when trouble comes. The deliverance I truly need is the deliverance not from the trouble but from the possibility of dishonoring the Lord in the midst of the trouble.