Thursday, June 14, 2012

Discipline, trouble, justice


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

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