Dealing With Affliction

Psalms 119:49-56
(49) Zayin. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.
(50) This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
(51) The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.
(52) When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD.
(53) Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.
(54) Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
(55) I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law.
(56) This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.

Is verse 50 true for you? Does God's Word give you comfort in affliction? I remember sitting at the pharmacy waiting for a prescription after hearing the news of Amanda's molar pregnancy. I remember thinking that God's grace was sufficient for us. I also remember thinking of Romans 8:28 quite often. God's promises to see us through and the promise of His ultimate goodness helped to make sense of everything. Why did we have to wait an extra two years for Noah? I don't know. I'm not sure if I'll ever know on this side of heaven. However, I do know that God has a plan and a purpose which I need to trust.

Verse 53 used to be a rally cry for me. It still bothers me when I see flagrant sin. The protests in California about Prop 8 are a good example of this. How would these folks feel if there was equal fervor shown in marching against the election of President-Elect Obama? But I digress...

The point is that we should be upset by sin. The trick I've found is to be upset by sin but not in a self-righteous Pharisaical way. That has been hard for me and is perhaps one of the reasons why I don't get as upset about it as I once did. I don't subscribe to the AFA alerts anymore because I just don't think that is particularly effective. It shows the world that we are different, but it hardly makes Christ seem compelling to anyone.

Then again, is it our job to make Christ seem compelling? It is our job to bring glory to the Lord through our lives. I'm just not sure that protesting everything is the best way to do it. For the most part, I think that these people know what they are doing when they choose lives of sin. They want society to assuage their consciences, but they know what they are doing. Only the gospel will change them. To me, what AFA does is basically tell people that we have the gospel, they don't, and so we're two sides in a battle. I think a better approach would be to say that we have the gospel, they need it, and here is what it is all about. We should be friends in a sense and not combatants.

Nevertheless, we should not lose our indignation over sin. We certainly should not go to sin for entertainment.