Joyful are those you discipline, Lord,
those you teach with your instructions. You give them relief from
troubled times until a pit is dug to capture the wicked. The Lord
will not reject his people; he will not abandon his special
possession. Judgement will again be founded on justice, and those
with virtuous hearts will pursue it. Who will protect me from the
wicked? Who will stand up for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord
helped me, I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave.
Psalm 94: 12-17 NLT
There seems to be lots of interwoven
thoughts in these few verses. The first is that sometimes stuff
happens to us that is part of God's instructions or teachings. God
wants us to learn something from what we experience. These
experiences could be good or bad, although the overall thought is
about bad things. This leads us to the second idea which is that
troubled times are also brought about because of wicked people.
Perhaps what you are going through is God's instruction, perhaps it
is a result of something a wicked person does to you. How to tell the
difference? Well, we don't get any idea about that here. We are just
to trust that God will give us relief to withstand the pressure until
God takes care of the wicked. The third idea in this passage is that
God will never abandon us. In fact, God will provide Holy justice
that will take care of all those wicked people.
Discipline, trouble, and justice go
hand in hand in this psalm. But these are not seen as bad things just
life things. Throughout each of them, we are to place our trust and
confidence in God.
God, life brings so many troubles that
we often don't know what you are giving to teach us or what others
use to try to destroy us. Help us to remain firm in our faith and
trust you at all times. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Copyright 2012 Amelia G. Sims
No comments:
Post a Comment