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Yesterday, I wrote an introduction for today’s verses. Then at 3:30 am I heard a drip, drip, drip. The guest bathroom toilet was leaking where the clean water supply goes into the tank. I tightened the nut and climbed back in bed. I decided to pray since I was awake. Tuesdays are the day I focus on God’s sovereignty, so I began there.
“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.” Ecclesiastes 3:14
“He changes times, and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.” Daniel 2:21
4:30 am – WHOOOOSH! There was more than a drip. Still recovering from surgery, I moved the quickest I have since the surgery. The bathroom was quickly filling with water. The nut had broken off. Water was spraying everywhere. My little ice cream bucket didn’t begin to help. I left the running water and moved as fast as I could to the garage to grab a five gallon bucket. It filled in no time. I grabbed towels off the rack with one hand while holding the gushing hose with the other. I soaked myself. I sprayed the window and counter. I tried to turn the valve off, but it wouldn’t budge. I yelled for the college student who is staying with us this summer. She came up. We switched places. I grabbed all the linens out of the closet and spread them on the hall and bathroom floors. By now the water was about an inch deep. I called my father-in-law who came over. I called my husband who is out of town to find out where the house water shut off valve was. My father-in-law got it turned off.
Water had also streamed into our basement through the ceiling. The downstairs bathroom and hallway were flooded, but at least the water had finally stopped flowing. For a while, I felt like the little boy in The Dr. Suess beginner book A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer, but now the rush of water had subsided.
Four thoughts went through my head in the 45-60 minute span:
1. I wonder if this is how Noah felt as it started to rain.
2. The rubber ducks in our bathroom must have had a good time.
3. It was probably a comical scene as I wrestled with the gushing hose soaking myself and the entire bathroom floor to ceiling.
4. God is sovereign.
God’s Word gave me comfort in my mini flood. The psalmist encourages us with the same truth:
Zayin
49 Remember your word to your servant,
in which you have made me hope.
50 This is my comfort in my affliction,
that your promise gives me life.
51 The insolent utterly deride me,
but I do not turn away from your law.
52 When I think of your rules from of old,
I take comfort, O Lord.
53 Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,
who forsake your law.
54 Your statutes have been my songs
in the house of my sojourning.
55 I remember your name in the night, O Lord,
and keep your law.
56 This blessing has fallen to me,
that I have kept your precepts.[1]
Psalm 119:49-56
In this strophe of Psalm 119, the psalmist begins with a plea, a plea for God to keep His promises, to fulfill His Word. “Remember your word to your servant, in which you made me hope. It’s a model for us. It was a model I utilized as water filled the bathroom and hallway. “This is, as Augustine said of his mother, ‘bringing before God his own hand-writing.’ Will he not remember his word?” (Bridges)[2]
God’s Word is our hope. God’s Word is deserving of our hope. God is the one who makes us hope. Even as water was rising on the bathroom floor, I knew that God was sovereign. This mini flood had not taken Him by surprise. I knew God was working in this to conform me to the image of Jesus and for His glory. I knew that God is good and He does good (Psalm 119:68). My hope is in God’s Word. Who God is and His promises never change regardless of my circumstances.
“This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life” (vs 50). First, the psalmist doesn’t ask for deliverance although I’ll admit, I wanted deliverance this morning. Instead, the psalmist declares his rest and trust in God and His Word. Second, the psalmist is personal. It is his affliction, but it is also his comfort. God is personal. He knows us. He knows our circumstances, and His comfort meets us in our affliction. Third, the psalmist speaks from personal experience. God’s past comfort encourages the psalmist to trust God for comfort in his current affliction. Fourth, God’s Word is life. It sustains. It revives. Jesus answered: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
Whatever our affliction, whatever our troubles, God’s Word is our hope, comfort, and life. Hide it in your heart. Meditate on it day and night. Memorize it. Share it with others. The world tries to convince us of many things we can turn to in our affliction – alcohol, drugs, sex, money, security, more things. What we need is God and His Word.
Today as I finished Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I found this fitting quote: “No comfort should be trusted that is not based upon truth” (Lloyd-Jones, 123).
We could stop here and have plenty to consider, but let’s finish the strophe. “The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law” (vs 51). The psalmist is ridiculed likely in part because he loves and trusts God’s Word, but he remains steadfast. He does not turn away from God’s Word.
“When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord” (vs 52). When ridiculed, the psalmist still finds comfort in God’s Word.
“Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law” (vs 53). The psalmist’s indignation is not a response to the ridicule he has received, but it is a response to those that are wicked, who have forsaken God’s law. They have denied or disparaged God’s Word. It is a righteous anger.
“Your statutes have been my songs in the house of sojourning” (vs 54). God’s Word has been the psalmist’s songs. He sings God’s Word even in affliction as did Paul and Silas while imprisoned (Acts 16:25). The psalmist sings in the house of sojourning. The psalmist understands this world is not his home. He has an eternal perspective. I really like our house, it’s location, and the way we have made it our own, but we are sojourning here. It is not our true home. Remembering this helps me keep the mini flood and other afflictions in perspective.
“I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law,” (vs 55). Night can be both literal and figurative. Fears can be more persistent in times of darkness, but the psalmist remembers God in those dark times. Remembering truths about who God is and His promises in the night, helps the psalmist (and us) to be faithful during the day.
“This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts” (vs 56). The psalmist confidently states with faith rooted in God’s Word that God has blessed him in the keeping of God’s Word. “We are not rewarded for our works, but there is a reward in them.” (Spurgeon)[3] We don’t earn God’s blessing through obedience, but in God’s grace, there is blessing in obedience.
God’s Word is hope, comfort, and life in affliction and at all times, but is it your hope, comfort, and life?
Reflection
1. Who or what do you turn to in affliction?
2. How has God’s Word been your hope? Been your comfort? Been your life? Be specific.
3. When others ridicule you for your faith and your trust in God’s inerrant, inspired, sufficient Word, do you remain steadfast or give in to fear of man? Why?
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 119:49–56.
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