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
Now I am not endorsing the book; I haven’t read it, but there is much truth in the idea that fundamentally, truth is simple, and that so often we need to go back to basics and apply them in our adult experience in order to get clarity about what really matters and how we should think and live.
From our youth some of us had disciplinary parents who loved us. Our earliest memories include the mindset that they were in charge and we were accountable to them. We had to do what they said and not touch things that were not ours. When we crossed the line, like clockwork, we got a spanking. It really hurt and we cried, sometimes a lot. Yet we came to understand that our parents loved us more than anyone else in this world, and that even this painful discipline was an expression of that love. This realization kept us from hating that always-present woman about the house and that man coming home from work each evening before dinner when either of them turned us over their knee.
Eventually, we learned to kiss the rod, so to speak. We also learned to obey consistently, and looking back, we are so grateful that they didn’t let us turn into delinquents, as we surely would have. No one loves his mom and dad more than the one who can reminisce about those early years and testify of their faithful, loving parental discipline when he was little. But even during kindergarten years, we start to get this: “he spanks me because he loves me and it is good for me.” A wise parent eventually explains this.
The psalmist states this truth in the spiritual realm, and it is, at the same time, both milk for babes and meat for strong men. It is just as useful a lesson for the new convert who suffers the jarring shock and shame when he has fallen into one of his old sins, and also for the most seasoned saint when he visits the grave of his beloved. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” In these words he states with obvious gratitude the benefit and purpose of divine chastening.
THE BENEFIT OF BEING CHASTENED BY GOD
To be true to life and experience, we must first of all acknowledge the real existence of mountainous pain and suffering even for the most spiritual and moral people in this world. The biblical faith is not Stoicism that teaches the wise to be free of passion, unmoved by joy or grief. The psalmist describes his personal suffering as being “afflicted,” a word in the original Hebrew that means to have hardships.2
The same word in the same grammatical form appears again in Isa 53.4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” This is one of the words chosen to describe prophetically what Jesus Christ would suffer in His passion, especially on the cross. There is no more excruciating human pain than what He endured in those awful hours. Far beyond the mere physical tortures was His anguish of soul, because the beaten, bruised, and lacerated Christ was also bearing the weight of Almighty God’s righteous wrath against all the sins of all the elect from the beginning of the world to the end. Christ lamented proleptically3 when the prophet wrote centuries before about the desolation of Jerusalem, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger” (Lam 1.12). No one else has ever suffered to the same degree as our dear Savior for His church.
The psalmist then is not saying that his afflictions were good in and of themselves, but that they had been made by God the instrument of much good to him. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” Our mighty and benevolent Lord has the power to make good come out of evil. The very same horrific experiences that harden a sinner and ripen him as a fit object of eternal condemnation because he curses Providence has, by grace, a completely different effect on the one who is the special object of God’s love. The same sun that hardens the clay also melts the wax.
What is a temporal punishment upon God’s enemies, while no different in outward form or intensity, is de facto a temporal chastening for the ultimate benefit of His beloved children. The only difference lies in God’s purpose, and therefore it is a confession of trust in God for the psalmist to say, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” It has been well said, “God is too wise to be mistaken and too good to be unkind.” His severity toward the reprobate is defensible on the grounds of justice (in this life it is even less than they deserve and so is tempered with mercy); God’s severity toward the elect abounds with mercy, since it parts them from their remaining sin and draws them nearer to Him who is the ultimate good.
It is easy enough to see this intellectually on sunny days, but when the storm clouds of God’s frowning providence burst upon our heads, it is the triumph of strong faith to confess it then. We must be patient and sympathetic and full of tender kindness when counseling the sorely afflicted. Sometimes sharing copious tears and assuring them of our loving prayers are more appropriate than a theology lesson. Still, it helps true believers immensely to bear up under trials if they understand that God sends pain to wean His people from this world that we might seek our all in Him.
THE PURPOSE OF BEING CHASTENED BY GOD
We receive further insight from the psalmist’s inspired words in the second line of this verse: “that I might learn thy statutes.” Of course he refers to Scripture, which is God’s Word. It is plain that the psalmist counted this good obtained through and after affliction to be greater than the evil suffered in it. So what was the treasure he gained that was worth all that suffering? A better knowledge of God’s written truth!
Skeptics will scoff. “What, is this some kind of sick joke? You languish on a bed of cancer so that you can brush up on your Bible trivia?” Stated so baldly, even a nominal Christian is bound to be offended, but do we not have at least a degree of secret sympathy with this godless attitude? How else can we account for our Bible neglect day after day after day when we are well? Many professing Christians think growing in the knowledge of God’s Word is not worth attending all the stated church meetings. They wantonly come late on the Lord’s Day and leave early, missing two-thirds of the biblical instruction. The same people are probably very inconsistent in their personal devotions or family worship.
If the Lord loves us as His own, He will surely not let us go but send affliction to remedy this grievous situation. There is something powerfully attention-getting for spiritual things to having the props of this life knocked out from under your feet! God often takes the dearest earthly possession away from His own for this very purpose. We may suffer financial catastrophe, a divorce, severe illness or injury, or even a close family member taken in death.
For Johnny Farese, it was complete physical debilitation. Born in 1956, he has been disabled since birth, is paralyzed in both arms and legs, and has now been unable to sit up for ten years. He was born with spinal muscular atrophy and was not expected to live past eight years old. For twelve years of his youth while he had some physical mobility, he says he was “gambling, heavy drinking, marijuana abuse, weekly visits to strip clubs and frequent engagements with call girls provided a means of escape from the pain, loneliness and emptiness I was experiencing.” But having loved Johnny from eternity, God was using this progressive disease to bring him home spiritually. After hearing his newly-converted brother Bernie’s testimony and starting to read the Bible for himself, Johnny experienced what happens when God takes away a sinner’s spiritual blindness and makes him see the glory of Jesus Christ. Now Psa 119.71 is one of Johnny’s favorite verses.
In light of my physical condition, I am often asked the age-old question, “How can an all-powerful God of love allow you to suffer in this way? Surely the Bible says that God always does what is right?” Yes it does—and He does! I have come to see that suffering is one of the many ways in which God demonstrates His unfailing love to those who have come to put their trust in Him. Writing out of his own painful experience, the psalmist says, “It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I might learn your decrees” (Psa 119.71)—and I gladly endorse every word of that testimony. Among other things, suffering empties us of pride and self-dependence, and makes us realize our complete dependence upon God. When we reach the point where we have nowhere to turn except to God, we begin to get a clearer view of who and what He is. Day by day, I am discovering more and more of His wisdom, love and grace. . . . I bear witness that never servant had such a master as I have, never brother such a kinsman, never spouse such a husband. No sinner ever had a better Savior than Jesus, no mourner a better comforter. I want none beside Him. In life He is my life, and in death He shall be the death of death. In poverty, He is my riches, in sickness my health, in darkness my sun. Jesus is to me all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood: and of truth and grace He is full, infinitely full.4
Whether you are a new convert or a seasoned saint, I urge you also to kiss the rod and be blessed!
Notes:
1. http://www.amazon.com/Really-Need-Know-Learned-Kindergarten/dp/034546639X\.
2. DBLSD #6700, Hebrew stem: pual.
3. “The representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished.”
4. Entire testimony available at www.farese.com
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