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Psalm 119:67\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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When we are far away from God, the first stage on the journey home is a crisis. I\u2019ve never known a Christian living in the far country who returned to God without a severe crisis coming into his or her life. C. S. Lewis said it this way: \u201cGod whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.\u201d<\/p>\n
English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge paid tribute to the value of pain in his own Christian life. He said, \u201cContrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we come home to God, we gain a different perspective on the painful things God used to bring us back to Himself. Think about our ultimate homecoming, the day we get to heaven. In Revelation 21:4, John said, \u201cHe will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.\u201d John was not saying that God will wipe our memories so we don\u2019t remember the terrible things that happened to us. Instead, when we get to heaven, we\u2019ll gain a new perspective on the suffering we went through in this life. One day, we\u2019ll see our suffering as the prelude to an even greater existence.<\/p>\n
In the same way, when we come back into a right relationship with God, it\u2019s not that we will look back at a divorce, an illness, or the death of a loved one and say, \u201cWow, what a happy experience!\u201d But if God uses those difficult circumstances to bring us back to Himself, one day we\u2019ll be able to look back on them, as Muggeridge said, with particular satisfaction.<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s what David had in mind when he said, \u201cBefore I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word\u201d (Psalm 119:67). David was never going to be happy about the crises God used to get his attention. Yet when he finally came back to God, he saw the value of those afflictions. God uses crises to bring us back into a right relationship with Himself. (Jeffress)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Psalm 119:67\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. When we are far away from God, the first stage on the journey home is a crisis. I\u2019ve never known a Christian living in the far country who returned to God without a severe … Continue reading “56.y. Psalm 119:67”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194921"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194924,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194921\/revisions\/194924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}