Psalm 119:49-56

Zayin.

Remember the word to Your servant, in which You have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me. The arrogant utterly deride me, yet I do not turn aside from Your law. I have remembered Your ordinances from of old, O Lord, and comfort myself. Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked, who forsake Your law. Your statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. O Lord, I remember Your name in the night, and keep Your law. This has become mine, that I observe Your precepts.^[1]

In times of hardship, it is good to remember the Word of the Lord, because it is that which gives us hope. We are living in difficult times. It appears that the world has been turned upside down. Things once universally considered unethical and immoral have suddenly become acceptable, and the committed believer wonders: what has happened? The writer lived and wrote in a different time and did not have Jesus in which to hope, but he had the Word of the Lord. We live a post-Jesus world. We know what it is to hope in Jesus and yet we have our moments when we struggle to make sense out of all that happens around us.

Struggle is not unique to any specific period of time or people. Struggle is a part of every generation and every believer’s life. In those moments we need something on which to place our trust and confidence, something in which to hope. Thank God for His Son, but also thank God for His Word that helps us to make sense out our condition and gives us reason to hope. In times of stress and grief, when my normal resources are exhausted I can go to His Word, be reminded of who He is and who I am, have my faith strengthened, and my hope restored. I pray you discover this to be true today in your life!

Holy God, thank You for Your Word that gives me hope for today and tomorrow. Thank You for the gentle, and sometimes harsh, reminders of Your plans and purposes for my life and Your world. Thank You for a record that demonstrates Your faithfulness to all generations and reminds me that because You are no respecter of persons, You are faithful to fulfill in me all that you have promised. Help me, this day, to focus on Your Word so that I will not led astray by the actions of the wicked who do not know You, and thereby hold on to my hope. Amen.

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ps 119:49–56.