This is my comfort in my affliction,

.... For Your word has given me life (Psalm 119:50). Some of the translations have “Your promise has given me life.” Strictly speaking it is “word,” but the previous verse reads “Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope,” and clearly the word given was a promise.  We should not suppose that living life to the best of our ability should be problem free, for “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).  The hope and promise of verse 49 then, is of deliverance.  Deliverance may,  or may not,  be in the here and now.  There were even some who where tortured but did refused deliverance in order that they might obtain a better resurrection (Hebrews 11:35). But in any case,  for the one who is kept by the power of God (1 Peter 1:5),  there is comfort, and there is life.

For the New Testament believer there is the comfort of the word (the Bible), and the comfort of the Word (Jesus John 1:1). For me the comfort I receive from the word is bound up in the promises. Through regular reading of His word, there are verses that stand out to me, and I have placed many of them in a file on my computer. And when I am discourage and in need of comfort,  I go to the file to remind myself of these promises. But I also find comfort in my relationship with the Lord. When I am burdened and heavy ladened it is to Him that I go to find comfort, rest and peace (Matthew 11:28, 29).

Most of humanity is either stuck in the past,  or fixated on the future. For the former, the past is either about the pain, or it is idealized and thought to be better than it was, “the good old days.” For those hoping to escape the present pain of affliction by being fixated on the future, the thought is that life will be better when ..... if .....!  For the believer who takes comfort in His Word and in His promises, affliction is a vehicle to life in all its fullness in the here and now (John 10:10b), and to the sure hope of eternal life when we die. For the believer it is more than possible to be present in the moment. The moment is all we have, it is the eternal now! Paul could say that he had learned in whatever state he was, to be content (Philippians 4:11). We need to do that too!

Father, learning to be content in the moment, is indeed something we need to learn. But we cannot learn this without affliction, trials and temptations.  It is in the storm that you truly learn to sail! We need with James to learn to rejoice when we encounter trials and tribulations (James 1:2). We cannot do this without the comfort of Your Word, and its life giving principles, at least I cannot Lord! We also need the comfort of Your Holy Spirit, the promised peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7),  and the healing presence of the love of Christ in which we need to be rooted and grounded (Ephesians 3:17). We pray for these things this morning Lord, in His holy and precious  Name Amen