Passage Read: Psalm 71-74
Meditation Verse: 71:20
Thought
This is the confidence of Job and of every believer. Though the Lord makes us see many troubles and distresses, yet He will revive us again and bring us up from the depths of the grave. This life has its fill of trouble and distress, especially the more we seek and serve the Lord. He does allow us to suffer many hardships. Some are necessary discipline as we learn to discern His ways, to turn away from wrong and learn to do right. Some are tests to prove and strengthen our faith, and help us chose God over the things of this world and life. Some are the attack of the unrighteous as we walk in the Lord's ways and bring conviction and rebuke into their lives, even without meaning to! God doesn't hide us from these things or them from us, but uses them to grow us to maturity. Our real hope is after death! And troubles teach us to set our hearts on that hope, that after all the troubles of this world and this life, we will live again, never to see trouble again! There is a day coming when we will see the hope of all we believed. And it is a day worth persevering all trouble to attain to. There is a reward to those who endured, who held fast to the Lord despite the trouble and grief, who persisted in ways pleasing to God.
Application
As the writer of Psalm 73 confesses, it is all too easy to envy the wicked and the unbeliever. They can have and do whatever they want, and they can have it now. They don't fear God or judgment, so they do whatever they want in order to gain in the present whatever reward they desire. Success and prosperity are as much a test as trouble and distress, especially when I'm tempted to think success has come through my own efforts. The solution, as these two psalms point out, is to see what lies beyond this life, that there is a judgment where the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked eternally put to shame. Better to choose humility and submission to God in this life, though it brings grief and its reward lies beyond death, than to demand and pursue a prosperous and painless life here and now. As Solomon points out in the intervening psalm, it is actually doing good to all, especially the weak and powerless, upholding justice and righteousness, that result in glory and honor in the here and now, but even more in the land of eternal glory. Can I hold out for the reward God offers or must I have an easy life now? God help me believe and firmly trust in Christ's resurrection, that I would hold fast my confidence in Your far off reward and not stumble in my pursuit of You and Your ways.