How Long Must I Endure?
Psalm 119:84-88 How long must I wait for you to punish those who persecute me? Proud people have tried to trap me and make me disobey your teachings. All your commands can be trusted. Those people are wrong to persecute me. Help me! They have almost destroyed me, but I have not stopped obeying your instructions. Show me your faithful love and let me live. I will do whatever you say.
Waiting for suffering to end is incredibly hard. You’ve no doubt been in places where sometimes, it doesn’t seem as though a resolution, an end, is even possible.
And the question that keeps rattling round in your head is: How long do I have to wait?
How long must I wait for you to punish those who persecute me? Proud people have tried to trap me and make me disobey your teachings. All your commands can be trusted.
Those people are wrong to persecute me. Help me! They have almost destroyed me, but I have not stopped obeying your instructions. Show me your faithful love and let me live. I will do whatever you say. (Psalm 119:84-88)
This man is in fear of life itself. We never find out who “they” are, but they’re certainly his enemies and they’re certainly after his life. It doesn’t get any worse than that. And in that place, it’s easy to shake your fist at God, to be bitter and resentful because He’s not showing up.
Yet notice how this man asks the question. The literal meaning of the original Hebrew words, is “how long must your servant endure?” The psalmist remains God’s servant, even when his life is being threatened. This isn’t some fairy tale. It’s a real man, praying to a real God about the injustice and the danger that he’s facing. And despite those things, he remains faithful to God. He continues to trust God – all your commandments can be trusted. He’s not swayed or dragged down to the level of the evil that pursues him.
Even though “they” have almost made an end of him, he hasn’t forsaken God’s Word. Indeed, he pleads his life into God’s hands, so that when this suffering ends, he can continue to do good on this earth. Powerful stuff!
If you’re suffering right now, I don’t know when or how your suffering will end. I don’t know how long you still have to endure. But I know this.
In the middle of even the most dangerous and life-threatening of circumstances, you can choose to remain God’s servant, to do good, to stay in God’s Word and to plead your case, even your life, into His hands.
In fact that’s the very thing He wants you to do, because His love for you reaches to the heavens, His faithfulness to the skies.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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