God's Mercy Through Affliction

God uses affliction to draw us closer to his Word, so we learn his statutes and his ways.

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

I get very uncomfortable with how the Bible describes hardships and suffering sometimes because God’s word says things like, “It was good for me that I was afflicted.” I would be ok with “good things happened through suffering” or “some good came out of that affliction” (granted, I rarely use the term “affliction” and mostly associate it with gaudy graphic t-shirts). But I struggle with the idea that it was good for me to suffer.

But God said it, and he says nothing that is not true, loving, and transformative. And Psalm 119:71 shows us the true, loving, transformative power of God through suffering–that which makes it good. It is because our affliction brings us close to the words of God, so we learn his statutes and his ways. This is not just a good outcome that slightly outweighs the cost of suffering; it is a shift in our entire reality into communion with God and faithfulness to God.

God says suffering is good, not because it is virtuous in itself, but because without it, stubborn, prideful people like me would never learn to love the richness of His word, way, and heart. We don’t need to seek out affliction. In this fallen world, it will find us. And when it does we can count it all joy when we face trials of various kinds (James 1:3) because the trials are good–good for us, good in us, good through us–as they teach us the wonderful depths of God.