You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts; their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
How often, if ever, have I acknowledged that it was good for me to go through trials and tribulations? Never is a pretty good guess. I’m not one to revel in adversity. But there is a powerful lesson here, that I need to be very heedful of those times when “things don’t go to suit me and the world seems upside down.” (From an old nursery song) . That is the Holy Spirit calling, “Take heed, John, I’ve got a lesson for you, a lesson to help you learn to rely on the God-head’s goodness. We will carry you through the Slough of Despond but you must learn to trust us.”
Is the lesson intent to teach me that a very important element of Worship is trusting the LORD, God, the Almighty in all things? I must not assemble with my fellow saints while grumbling that the Trinity has let me down? I must examine my heart first, “Am I assembling with my brothers and sisters in an attitude of Thanksgiving and Worship?” If not, go and get my heart right with the LORD first. Then and only then, am I in a proper attitude of Worship.
