November 10 – Tet - Psalm 119:65-72

November 10 – Tet - Psalm 119:65-72

Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according to thy word.
Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in thy commandments.
Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep thy word.
Thou art good and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
The godless besmear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep thy precepts;
their heart is gross like fat, but I delight in thy law.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Have you ever noticed how most really good stories of people’s lives come from transformation?  They were in one place that wasn't so good and came out of it through faith into another place and now they are able to live in joy.  Many of these stories begin with a big success of some sort, then there is a crash and then redemption.

I think the reason this happens is that without that crash, we don’t actually appreciate the glory and wonder that is life.  We go along in our lives perfectly happy with all that is great, thinking we've got it made.  Then, we things fall apart and we come out on the other side, we recognize that life is so much more than we knew.

There are so many things that can happen to us and I suspect that most of us have at least one thing that happened in our lives which we can point to and say, “That was the moment I realized that there was so much more to life.”  Maybe it was the death of someone we loved.  I clearly remember the night Mom told us she had two weeks to live.  Things were swirling through my mind with such rapidity, I couldn't focus.  Then it hit me, nothing else mattered except love.  She no longer cared about what was happening in our business or the gossip at the church.  The only thing she wanted to do was ensure her family knew how much she loved us.

It is good for us to face struggles, whether large or small, because when we come out on the other side of them, we find that we have learned so much.