It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes (Psalm 119:71).
The psalmist David had felt the deep pain of real affliction, and through it he had come to know God better, through his Word. The cost of coming to know God better was his own comfort, but David says it was worth it, it was good.
From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God holds himself up as the treasure of the universe, of surpassing value. And if God is supremely valuable, then that means he is worth anything it may cost us to know him better, to have more of him, to experience more of his presence in our lives.
For most of us, it is easier to see the goodness of God when things are going our way than when we are undergoing affliction.
God was worth Abraham leaving country and kin to follow God. God was worth Moses giving up the riches of Egypt to pursue God. God was worth Job losing everything he had, even though Job didn’t choose to do so voluntarily, in order to experience more of God. And Jesus says God is worth selling everything you have in order to gain more God-treasure.
God can use many things to open our eyes and bring us to himself, including success and pleasure and beauty. But in a sin-cursed world that begins with the pain of childbirth and ends with death, it is inevitable that we will at some points in our life know what it is to suffer. And for most of us it is easier to see the goodness of God when things are going our way than when we are undergoing affliction.
God is good to bring afflictions, because God is better than anything he takes away from us in order to reveal himself.
Yet, here David insists it was worth going through affliction in order to better come to know God and his ways. In fact, he presents God in this passage as actively working affliction into our lives in order to remind us of his own superior value (Psalm 119:65, 68). “God is good to bring affliction to me,” David says. In fact, five times in this brief section of Psalm 119 David uses the word “good,” climaxing with the claim that God is in fact “better” than anything else this world has to offer (Psalm 119:72).
God is better than wealth, than comfortableness, than painlessness, than our own plans, than our own “good” efforts. And so it is the goodness of God to remove these lesser things, when necessary, in order to help us enjoy more of him.
If you, then, are a suffering Christian, keep your eyes on the surpassing value of God in Jesus as you pass through the pains of this life. And if you are not a Christian, consider the superior worth of eternal pleasures with Jesus Christ to any lesser, temporary joys in your life.
God is good to bring afflictions, because God is better than anything he takes away from us in order to reveal himself.