Category Archives: Perserverance

Awakened to God (Psa 119.147-148)

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I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried:
I hoped in thy word.
Mine eyes prevent the night watches,
That I might meditate in thy word.

Laziness is deadly. The Bible’s wisdom literature ridicules this sin with a pathetic caricature of a man so lazy that he lacks the energy and will to pick up the food on his plate! “A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again” (Prov 19.24). Now, we realize that this is an exaggeration in the physical realm for the purpose of shaming us in our sinful laziness, but let us go with it for a moment. Since like everyone else this sluggard must eat to live, a couple things naturally follow. First, he is extremely lazy if even an empty belly will not motivate him to eat. Second, he who stops eating has taken the course that leads to death.
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Faith Withstanding Disapproval (Psa 119.141)

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I am small and despised:
Yet do not I forget thy precepts (Psa 119.141).

“No man is an island,” it has been said. Virtually everyone is involved in a complex web of interpersonal relationships where we influence others, and others influence us—even people we do not know personally, but whose ideas capture the public imagination, or who leave the impress of their perspectives on their works of writing, speaking, engaging in commerce, governing, voting, and even making music. This communal reality is occasionally helpful, but so often in our perverse generation it works insidiously against our trusting and following Jesus Christ.
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Postures of Spiritual Triumph (Psa 119.86)

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All thy commandments are faithful:
They persecute me wrongfully; help thou me (Psa 119.86).

Heroism often appears in a crisis moment, but this is but its momentary manifestation. Its underpinnings are good character quietly growing largely unnoticed in spite of a thousand deterrents which effectively suppress the potential greatness of others. That daily, sustained, disciplined virtue which prepares one to shine in the convergence of opportunity and challenge deserves more admiration than it commonly receives.

It is said, “Sow a thought, and you reap an act; sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny,”1 but the destiny gets all the attention.
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God Has Been More Than Fair With Me (Psa 119.75)

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I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right,
And that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me (Psa 119.75).

Many unbelievers implicitly acknowledge God’s control over all things, including their personal catastrophes, and then hold a grudge against him. Perhaps when a loved one was dying of cancer, the person now spiritually-disgruntled had prayed earnestly for healing. “Oh, God, please don’t let her die,” the father pleaded for his sick daughter. And then she not only died, but suffered grievously for six months in the process! And God made this happen to her when she was only four years old—an innocent little girl who did not even know what was happening to her and suffered it all without complaining. Now the father hates God and feels completely justified.
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Kissing the Rod (Psa 119.71)

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It is good for me that I have been afflicted;
That I might learn thy statutes (Psa 119.71).

“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” is the attention-grabbing title of a book by Robert Fulghum from the eighties. What did he have in mind? Simple duties like this: share everything, play fair, don’t hit people, put things back where you found them, clean up your own mess, don’t take things that aren’t yours, say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody, etc. He wrote,

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.1

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Overcoming the Slanderers (Psa 119.69)

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The proud have forged a lie against me:
But I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart (Psa 119.69).

God’s kingdom triumphs on a battlefield of hostile forces. The ancient contest appears in each generation among men, and in each man’s soul. Not until the end of this age and the arrival of the new heavens and the new earth will all the saints be able to love God and one another unhindered by remaining sin and unmolested by Satan’s minions. For now, as the old saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
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My Chastened Soul

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Before I was afflicted I went astray:
But now have I kept thy word (Psa 119.67).

Before God, the church, and the world, this is the psalmists’ testimony of his growth in grace and a painful means by which it came. He measured his spirituality by the rule of Scripture. “I had departed from Scripture and now I have returned to keep it.” You are no closer to God than you are to His Word—not only in a knowledge of it, but also in the love of it—and all those who love His commandments consistently put them into practice. The more love to His law, the more consistency in obedience to it.
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A Song Away From Home

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Thy statutes have been my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage (Psa 119.54).

This psalm-writing saint, as one devoted to the true and living God, has written this verse as a testimony in prayer, addressed to Him. It is personal without being private, for the Psalms were given for all believers to sing, especially in public worship. The sentiments of this godly heart are shared by all true saints, even if such a great degree of clarity and conviction is not enjoyed by all. We all know something of this ideal and we all must keep striving to excel spiritually.

This text is a saint’s testimony that he has a song away from home. It implies three simple truths.
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Withstanding Persecution

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I remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord;
And have comforted myself (Psa 119.52).

The misery of suffering persecution is, of all spiritual trials, especially dangerous to the soul. It can tempt us to wonder whether God really loves us, or whether He even exists. It can eventually beat down our resolve to love God faithfully when the price is so steep. Prolonged persecution, especially that which lasts over many generations, can make it seem that there is no end to the present, awful order of things, where the wicked triumph over the righteous.
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A Resolution for the New Year and Beyond (Psa 119.44)

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So shall I keep thy law continually
For ever and ever (Psa 119.44).

The great-by-grace Jonathan Edwards believed in making and keeping resolutions. In 1722-23 before his twentieth birthday, he wrote his famous seventy, which include a promise of periodic self-examination in the light of these resolutions:

3. Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
37. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent – what sin I have committed – and wherein I have denied myself; also, at the end of every week, month and year.

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