Something Good About Bad Times

Psalms 119:75 - "I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me."

As people of God, we can learn much from David, the man after God's own heart. As he learned, so must we learn. We need to be corrected by our Heavenly Father. We must guard our heart against thinking evil of God or His chastening hand.

We must grow to understand the Lord's correcting hand is guided by eternal love, and there is a nail print in it to prove such correction is administered in His infinite wisdom. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb", as the old proverb states.

Not only are His judgments carried out in love, they are fair and impartial. We can know God knows our situation and is fully able to discern between an evasive excuse and a real reason.

We must learn to not despise on-going correction or grow weary of daily demonstrations of His authority over all His sons and daughters. The very fact that we are the objects of God's correction, argues for us being real members of His forever family.

We can rejoice we are not getting the full due of our sins and failures, since Christ already bore that unbearable burden. Yet the law of sowing and reaping has not been repealed even under grace.

Perhaps no affliction has ever been allowed in our lives without the basic aim of driving us to the scriptures. Psalms 119:71: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your statutes." In God's Word, we find ready forgiveness, renewal and redirection into the proper paths for God's dear children.

Disobedient children of God reflect on their God, just as children in the natural show the care and character of their natural parents. This is why the Apostle Paul said, "This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men." Titus 3:8

"Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." 1 Peter 2:12

"keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." 1 Peter 3:16

Finally, let us not reject God's correction because it is delivered in a clumsy fashion by a man: "Let the righteous strike me; It shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; It shall be as excellent oil; Let my head not refuse it." Psalm 141:5 (NKJV)