The Best Things in Life
It is good for me that I was afflicted, so that I may learn Your statutes. Psalm 119:71 NASB
Good for me – Read it again. Slowly. Pause on the first phrase. Do you really believe what the poet writes? Is it goodto be humbled, oppressed, forced into submission, punished? Before you let your theological better self provide the “correct” religious answer, search your feelings (that sounds like Yoda). I read a fortune cookie message once. It said, “Adversity willingly undergone is the greatest virtue.” Does that describe you? Did you really sign up for affliction? Somewhere in the TDNT I remember reading that the real role of Christians in this world is to suffer for others. That’s a far cry from the typical “gospel” of getting to heaven. The poet’s single word, ṭôb- lî, “good for me,” is a significant challenge to all of us. The Jewish school of musar embraces this idea—training requires discipline, discipline requires punishment. I’m not sure most Western religions actually practice this. Perhaps we’ve grown “fat.”
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:3-5 NIV
It seems to me that we pretend we’ve graduated from the Messiah’s training school. We act as though our lives should be blessed. We imagine we should be healthy, wealthy, and wise. We’re shocked when we encounter religious persecution. In other words, we really don’t want to be like him. The poet simply reminds us that messianic righteousness requires adversity willingly undergone. But I imagine most of the world would rather listen to the Beatles:
Topical Index: good for me, ṭôb- lî, affliction, Psalm 119:71
Affliction is the experience by which we learn “what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God.” Moreover, it comes not by being “conformed to this age”, but “by the renewal of one’s mind”— explIcitly “through the mercies of God”, whereby we are given understanding of the necessity “to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is our reasonable service”. Over time, the rich mercies of God have far surpassed all my deserved punishment, and I now understand affliction— particularly his, but also mine— as the experience which has brought and continues to bring his peace.