Summary: “We need God to do whatever it takes to keep us desperate for him so we don’t wander.”

Series: Desperate for God

Bible Reading: Psalm 119:65-72 NKJV

“65. You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word. 66. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, For I believe Your commandments. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word. 68. You are good, and do good; Teach me Your statutes. 69. The proud have forged a lie against me,

But I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart. 70. Their heart is as fat as grease, But I delight in Your law. 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes. 72. The law of Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of coins of gold and silver.

As Children of God; we are all Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God we love; and later we will come back and say Lord Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above.

We understand this. We all keenly feel our proneness to wander from the God we love. And we all want this terrible proneness to decrease.

We do want God to keep us from wandering so we persevere and make it to his heavenly courts — what are we asking God for?

A Severe Mercy

God has left us plenty of mystery in how he “keeps us from stumbling and . . . presents us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” Jude 1:24 says “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,”

But it’s not all mysterious. From Genesis to Revelation, we find a consistent element present in the lives of persevering saints of God. And it is captured in this brief sentence in Psalm 119:67: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.”

What cured, or at least decreased, the psalmist’s proneness to wander?

Here’s my heart, O take and break it;

So I love thy courts above.

To borrow a phrase C.S. Lewis used when comforting a suffering friend, God uses affliction as “a severe mercy” to help keep his saints from going astray.

The Effects of Affliction and Prosperity

This is a paradox. Affliction is typically an evil we experience in our bodies, relationships, circumstances, achievements, or religious persecution.

Prosperity one the other hand is typically a good we experience in our bodies, relationships, circumstances, achievements, or religious freedom. Yet, we have a tendency to move towards God in affliction and wander away from God in prosperity.

The Bible is full of examples of this paradox, but let’s look at two: 1) when good came through the evil of affliction and 2) when evil came through the good of prosperity.

The Blessing of a Satanic Thorn

The revelations and power granted to Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill his apostolic calling to plant and oversee many Gentile churches, as well as function as the global-historical church’s foremost theologian, were overwhelming for any fallen human being. How did God help Paul remain faithful? Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 12:7 “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.”

“We need God to do whatever it takes to keep us desperate for him so we don’t wander away from Him.”

What specifically this “thorn” was isn’t important (I thank God we don’t know for sure). What is important is that we see how God used an evil affliction, a messenger of Satan, to keep Paul humble and faithful.

None of us bear the same responsibility as Paul. But if we think we therefore need fewer afflictions, we are significantly wrong. We are tempted to unbelief in ways Paul wasn’t because of the things he saw and we haven’t. Just like Paul, we need God to do whatever it takes to keep us desperate for him so we don’t wander.